CatalinT

Hi Blackbird, 

Not sure if this is still a problem you have , but i can only give some tips I discovered my first time with my avic f950Dab 

1. Make sure the USB stick is corrected formated. NTFS will not work. 

2. Make sure the file format is supported AND has the correct screen size. 

In my case , i have to convert all video files according to the video format described in the manual: 400x200 was the maximum size I could use. 

Hope it helps and good luck 

why is is so hard to get an answer on this? 

Hi fellow NAV freaks, 

I am posting this in hope to get a clean answer coz i really cant find the solid info. I tried looking and searching but cant say i had any luck. 

Are there any hack/mods that works on my Avic F950DAB ? A couple of years ago i had a F900BT and i loved it so much without Pioneers own software, and would love to mod my new one as well. I've brought mine over a year ago, and still cant figure out if there are any mods working on my model or not. 

So if anybody can give me a straight answer on this subject , i would be grateful. Am I stuck with Pioneers original software? 

Or what else can be done with model ?

Cheers from Oslo 

Hi Eiro,

The best advice i can give you is to use this tool http://www.xmedia-recode.de/

I had a thread here too regarding this. I have a F950dab and i had the same problem. Using different converters was a pain in the ass since they all did something to the file which made it unraedeble. Keep in mind that our units have a max resolution av 400x240. Using the xmedia-recode tool , it has profiles for Pioneer units, inkluding 940BT. I use this one to to convert my files and it works flawless. You can use some others tools as well, MovaviConterer was a good tool also , but is not a freeware.

Check ur manual refence table on supported files. Very important that part.

This issues here , is nothing else than crappy codec Pioneer is licensed to use. The limitation av 400x240 is also just another bullshit. The screen support higher resolution, ref DVD movies.

I wish somebody made a player for these pioneer units. One which plays everything without changing files and better handling on fast forward for long mp3 mixes.

Good luck

 

Hello,

My Unit is F9220BT

I have done many tests to see the best playable format via SD.

These are my current conclusions.

I use the free software "MediaCoder" with the following settings:

• Container: mp4
• Video bit rate: 512 Kbps CBR
• Format: H264
• Resolution: 640x360
• Frame rate: 24 fps
• Coder: x264 (Baseline Profile - Level3.0)

 

It seems like your unit supports higher resolution. 640x360. On my unit is lower 400x200. PEE had some bad conscience or something coz they replied once more time to announce how satisfied they were using Xmedia Record software. In other words they advised me to use this software since it's working. This software seems to be made especially for this kind of stuff, and it also has profiles for Pioneer Avic units. This answer was to my case with them. I guess i should ask them to put a credits and a link to this software in the manuals.

Hi rstc120

I may not be the expert in this forum , but from my experience with electronic devices, specially computerized , this may be like a big doo doo. Internally meaning, Unless it does not respond to testmode, then i believe u have a dead unit. Mainboard, a shortcut somewhere, a fuse or something like that. It sounds like it does receive power since u can hear the fan. But that it. If Power words, often if the mainboard the next to look at.

Hope somebody else has a better opinion on this. But to me that's what it sounds like.

I hope for you , I am very wrong

My final update on this subject.

So i received an answer to my problem. This is from their reply :

"Designer confirmed that all other parameters except resolution are within specification. So in case customer can reduce the resolution properly, it should work We have tried
"MovaviVideoConverter" and succeeded to downsize the file (320x180). Unfortunately, this is a trial version, so there is a "trial message' hardcoded over the screen."

At first I was pissed. Because they used the first file i sent them, before I knew about the limitation. My second mail had a file converted to 320x240 pixel , and it was an AVI. Second i have a feeling they did even look for any freeware converters, but they did said that "all other program adapted parameters and playback was not possible". Which other parameters they did not tell even after two more emails. So i went a little further , and tried this movaviconverter myself. At first I just wanted a standard resolution 320x240pixels and chose avi profile. And it it not work. From here i was just pissed off. I could not bear to try like this. After almost one month i could not believe it was so freaking hard to just play a video file from usb or sd card.

I sent an email demanding a proper test and solution , or just a refund. At this point i have to mention that my daily work is IT-Administrator and consultant i many areas. So I had to make it clear i know my stuff around and could not accept that this is normal procedure on a unit like this, coz it is not that easy to play a file even for me. Even if it worked in their convertion of 380x180 the unit states it supports a max resolution of 400x240 MPEG-4 AVI like i tried. In between i had to try the same resolution. But i also noticed the codec the avi convertion was using. and it was h.264.Original file was an MP4 hi-res 380p Meaning this is not supported in AVI file format. Only Mpeg4. Looking at the table the MP4 format is supported in h.264. So I changed to MPEG , and IT WORKED. but of course it was converted in s smaller window with large black sides. Like it does not scale up to the screen. So i tried a couple of more resolutions all under 400x240. They worked , and you could see the the window of video was bigger the more I increased. Of course i did some streching as well. So all the big fuss was this codec setting in AVI profiles. Mpeg and H264. This was automatically preserved from the original file for hires i guess.

AVI : Only MPEG

MP4: Both MPEG and H.264

Keep it under 400x200pixels

So from here it starts to clear a little .

My opinion is that PEE did a bad work on this codec stuff. They cant possibly expect that baseline users must put so much work and so complex tasks to be able to play a video file.

Another problem is, the screen resolution is max 400x200. Meaning it should be able to scale up to the screen.area when playing a video file under the maximum support. Larger of course problem of course it does not scale down. The lack of the codec support, and various differences between them, it makes it easy to convert wrong for the unit. I my opinion this is to much to teach somebody with standard use of a computer. Changing parameters from HI resolution to lower , different type of codecs and sound compression, is not something i would see myself doing on a car unit from the dealershop for the mass marked.

Now i know there is nothing wrong with the unit. Now i can finally convert and play files. But i will not buy a software to make this work. I will use different programs and try convertion with the details i know.

Using the suggested program movaviconverter, helped me understand where the problem was and the limitation of such hi-end unit. Looking at the brochure, you can jump of joy with so many goodies and others. Just to find limitation like this which makes it hard to just enjoy the digital world of entertainment.

Must add, Like always, I can be very pushy when i look after solutions and results. I have this from my line of work, but i also can admit when i am wrong. In this case i do not feel i was off topic at all. I may have been a little to strict and demanding, but i also had patience and did a lot of research ,plus lots of try and fail. I did wrote back right after finding out the problem. And i did also apologized for pressing on their buttons. Still , they need to look into this and make something about it, cause from stock , this unit cannot just play a video file from SD or USB storage, which makes this function useless. 

I also received a link to this program from them. http://www.xmedia-recode.de/download.html in their last aproach before my email. Which looks to be a cool fereware prog. It has profiles for different devices that can playback video files. including Pioneer Avic and AVH series. I need to have a closer look at this prog coz it looks like a good tool and free and this will be my main tool for the job until a new firmware release with hopefully a fix for this, or I just MOD my unit when i feel safe to do it

If any of you read my post, thank you very much. I know this is not the most informative post in here, but since i have been a member here, i never posted anything useful to call, but found lots of answers. My old F900BT was modded and it rocked. Hope this little experience of mine may be helpful for lost souls out there waving similar problems. I know i spent many hours on the net, and posting, without finding anything to help.

Have a cool evening. Now i tank my SD-cards and USB stick with music and videos

I have not given a try to my AppRadio yet because I do not have the correct cable. It is written in the manual that using AppRadio must use the cable. It is not enough to just enable BT. For my Andoid i need to connect the HDMI kable.I did a first try using BT and the Appradio app for my Android, it saying it's connectected , besides that nothing. 

So i did not try anymore, since i read it requires connection kit.

I thought I had a good response and there was the solution, but i only wish.

PEE sent a reply my case. Since they also had one of the files i tried to play, they just saw that the size of the video was 460x380 pixels. So they presented me with the table of supported video formats. Which states that from USB or SD storage it can only play video files of 400x240 pixel. Wonder why ? DVD format if much more and it plays.

So i tried , i converted a bunch of files, to a maximum resolution of 320x240 pixels. I thought that should solve everything.  To my surprise , same problem again. unable to play media file, check manual for supported files ... or something like that. I tried converting to MP4, AVI and WMV (which are the only formats allowed from USB/SD storage) , and nothing.

So now i sent one avi sample , of 320x240pixels  and asked them to fucking try it. If it works ok , then my unit has some issues. If not , then I requested that they convert my file, to whatever PE requieres, and send it to me to have a template. Just for fun, i tried to put a DVD movie in the player, and that worked flawless. And then I tried burning the video files onto a dvd . That didnt work either. I am 100% sure, if i create a DVD from all the video files, it will work, but that is not my goal.

I payed a lot for this high end unit, and I do not want to spent time and use lots of dvd for this matter. If so , they cant take it back and give me another one cheaper.

News will be updated on next session.

C.

PS: I refuse to resample all the videos to a fix size of 400x240 pixels for all files. The point is this unit should be able to play video files. My old F900BT was a killer on this subject. I ate pretty much everything without any changes to the files.

Hi again , thought i give a little heads up.

Of course i dont post and wait for an answer , so i went further and involved my dealer as well. Upon request to test my files i sent them two of my files. I can see from the conversation they had that they talk directly to Pioneer. Today i received an update: Pioneer has seen the problem and they are working on it to figure it out.

There was no explication or any other information , and since "they are working on it" tells me there is an issues somewhere with my F950DAB. Otherwise they would have told me "it works fine on our unit" and a standard troubleshooting message would be sent.

I will keep informed when i have more news.

Hi all ,

I am about to go out of my mind , and tried to sort this problem a while now, and i did my best to search and try , but i am stuck at the same point: Unable to playback file. And after it does this on every file, it ends with Cannot play files.

My unit F950DAB , is not hacked, only parkbrake grounded. I can use GPS functions while driving, DVD play also while driving. But i cannot get any video file play at all. I want music video files for my unit. I have tried USB and SD card (micro) , and all i get is Unable to playback , check user manual . I tried to update my unit with the latest firmware, still no go.

I tried checking the video files , convert them for ipod, or less resolution, even used Handbrake software as mentioned in another thread, still no change. Most of the videofiles are like 640x380 or 480 og less. I tried to avvoind higher resolution since i do not know if the unit have any issues with HD material. So i am guessing this is nothing to do with the files. Been trying , divx, avi , mpeg, mp4 , all the same. But DVD works as i said.

Any thought about this?

I really have to mention this one more time since no one reacted on my previous attempt. My unit is brand new from shop. When it came the green handbrake wire was not grounded. This caused my unit to believe that it was in motion all the time so i could not change GPS address , or of course play dvd. I have ONLY grounded the brake wire, which solved the issue with grayed manu items. I haven't done anything to my yellow wire (Mute) it is in it's original place. All the bypass guides refer to moving this one also one spot to left. In my case i have not done that since it was just working. Can this be the cause of why i cant play any video files from USB/SD ? Besides this everything is fine. Just for the note, all my tests have been done while parked.

fyi: My unit uses the the same firmware as F50 , and AvicX850 series.. For now i do not dare to hack my unit since i have not found one thread if my unit is supported or not for this.

HI 1loudls

Thank you for the warning . I am very carefull on what i allow myself to do with my brand new F950DAB , can't affort to just buy another one

So i went to a company whos doing only this kind of stuff , and they told me that my Suzuki GrandVitara 2006 does not have that cable and needs to be hocked from the speedomenter. Which of course they gladly can do it. For now , i have to wait a little until my finance is better.

Once again , thank you for reply.

C

Hi guys ,

I post here also  and hope to get an answer on this matter. Can someone just tell me what to do with the VSS cable when i dont have either backup camera or can-bus installed. I understand that hooking up the VSS cable it will help my gps. In norway we have lots of tunnels and driving through one , it will cause the gps to go haywire coz it has no clue where it is. So i understand that this VSS wire maybe is my solution. My question is : is it just to ground the VSS cable like i did with parking brake ? or do i really need to buy the can-bus etc.

in advance thanx

I would like to add a little comment on this subject and tell me what you think.

Last week i wrote a little post regarding my problem with my brand new unit F950DAB. I have not done any bypass and my unit was complaining that my wehicle is in motion therefore cannot use the settings menu. After a little help from the memeber Pug, i grounded my parking brake cable since it was not. This has acctually fixed my unit. It does not complain about being in motion, i can access all the menus, i can type in new address on gps without stopping the vehicle and play video while driving. So for my unit looks like just grounding the parking brake is all io had to do, and the mute cable is on it's original position.

only problem i have which i still try to figure out is this problem with GPS location while in tunnels, buildings etc. I have understood there is an importance of this VSS which is very confusing for me what to do with it. Can i just connect this VSS to the ground like i did with the parking brake. I do not have a can-bus . I only have the kit for my steering weel buttons. Any good advice on this matter would be grate.

Thanx in advanced.-

To me it looks the same as F950BT but without DAB and some other models in that class .

http://pioneer.eu/no/products/25/111/241/AVIC-F950DAB/page.html

It has the AppRadio button in the middle at main menu , and my unit also has no Reset button to use , or a wheel button with up and down left right to make the combination to go in test mode.

Hi guys.

Hope someone can clarify a thing. I have a Avic-F950DAB /XNEU5 to be precise. Is this equal to other models? , coz i can't seem to find anything about my unit. So i dont know if i can or cannot mod/hack my unit. Is my unit too new and nothing available yet ?  

I spent many hours searching the net for pretty much everything from bypassing hacking and modding, and cant find anything besides the commercial part.

Hope anyone can help on this.

Thanx  , and have a cool sunday evening before that new week .

It seems like that did the trick. I just inserted the parking brake in the same socket as the ground , and i was able to access everything. Still , this is a mystery for me. Buying a unit like this should come prepared to insert and start up. I dont think Pioneer is happy to let every moron trying to fiddle with cables which can result into fatal outcome , both for ther unit and the user.

Thanx for the help Pug

have a wonderfull sunday

Hi again ,

Thanx for taking time to reply.

Yes i noticed the long wire with the clip. Since i was like paranoia of something touching the connector in the clip , i just closed that clip. Hope that does not mean anything.

I think i will go to the car in an hour and start digging. I am going to try to ground this parking sensor. At this point i will only do that. Ground the parking brake.

but i dont get this : Does it mean that people will have to ground the parking brake before installing the unit , even when taken out of the box brand new ? I would thinks Pioneer would not do such a thing.

Hi Pug

Just to understand this correctly, did you had the same problem ? As i mentioned , this is brand new unit,and i would like to just start it normal , no hacks or something. And this is what botheres me. Either i have managed to damage the cable somehow, or this is a faulty unit. At this point i would go ahead and try to make the bypass , and see if it works. Coz the symptom i have is that the unit things the car is in motion. Therefore cant access any settings , or Safe Mode button.

Hei guys,

I just brought a brand new Avic-F950Dab version a couple of days ago , but did not had the change to install it since my install kit did not arrived. At this point i wanted to take care of the bypass hack, but i saw it was to hard so i decided not to fiddle or force it. I did not managed to pull the cable out, I did not force it, and im pretty sure i did not do any damage (at least i hope) .

So my problems is the i started my unit in my car, and to my surprise I cant access anything from setings menu , because it thinks it's in motion. I get the message "cannot operate any settings while vehicle is in motion" somthing like that. Clearly i am not in motion. Tried moving and stopping , but no help.

Have i managed to damage the mute cable or something ? I really cant see how i could do that since i was pretty set not to fuck it until i tested the unit in original state.

Any thought on this problem ? I need an opinion on this before i contact the dealer shop.

Oh , i am also wondering . Do i have to connect the RCA connector even i have nothing to connect to them ? I have no rear camera, or any other devices connected. I tried start the unit without this bundle of RCA connectors, and have the same problem.

As now i can only listen to media files and radio , setting up my unit is impossible. I am surprised to see the gps at least managed to find i'm in Oslo, my Town.

Hello,

I would like to know if anybody has experienced any problems with the GPS when starting up. Here is the situation.

I upgraded to latest firmware. After that i have installed Abb's mod. I did not noticed this until the day after i have installed. When i start my car, my GPS is offline. Is like searching and searching. This can take up to 5 min or so. Usually i drive off and after a while it finally comes online. When it connects everything looks ok. The problem exists only when the car has been parked for a while. Like a couple of hours or so, and every morning. I did not had the time to go back and format and reinstall the original software. I can also mention that i did not had this problem before the upgrade, and wonder if any1 else has been experience problems like this.

Does anybody has any idea how i can fix this ?

Cheers

Catalin

Hi Abb,

This is a grate mod indeed and it has pretty much everything i heard and read about on net about mods on F-series

To begin with i installed and worked ok. Until i try changing the car. I read in the post that others experienced that. I was unlucky to experience this from my first pick. I tried to pick the Porche Police car. I don't remember the real name. After i changed the car, my F900BT unit was just resetting. The post mentioning this said that he had to set it back to default, but not how. So i took the n00b approach and I tried reinstalling, in hope i can reset it back.But still the same. Then i found out that for some reason my GPS suddenly was off. Which i dont know if this was another reason for why my unit was resting. Since my last action was activating the map, it tried to start with the map after the reset. Anyway, i took the hard way and installed the original files back, then reinstalled your mod and got back on track again. I dont know if there is a bug somewhere that makes the unit reset if the GPS is unavailable. But i thought i should mention this juts in case. Regarding my GPS, after i got back to my original files, it still was Off for some reason. So i waited like 5, and drove a little, and then it came back. It was at this point i reinstall a fresh copy of the mod, and got back on track.

For me i have two questions.

1. Is there a way to use ur mod with the original map scheme and the arrow. I must say i'm not fond of the fancy zoom-all-the-way in to see a car on a road, and buildings. i liked the original scheme with the arrow. I like having the original overview of the road. I tried zooming out so i have like the same scale as before, the only problem is that the map get like scrambled on half of the screen (the road ends at the middle of the screen, and the background picture is not clear anymore. It get like bad resolution and unable to see what's there). It seems to me that the schemes are ment to be used with the zoom all the way inn so u can see the horisont and the background. Therefore i wish i could go back to the original and and the arrow. I read something about modifing the day and night under data.zip for the car , but i have a feeling there is more to it. Could you please give me a little info on how i can do that ?

2. Your whole theme to the mod is looking grate, but in many places there is too much white on the background so if there is text over, is hard read. F.ex when i play the radio, in the field of the radio station name there is a background with text "Avic411" i think. The text on the radio station name is white and therefore it is a little hard to read. Not that i want to complain, or really need to fix this, but i wonder if I can download themes and use it your mod ? Or are u planing to release some other themes to your mod? If i could have a wish , i would like to keep the old theme. Black background, easy simple icons, without to much effects. But that's just me.

I really want to stick with your mod since it has grate features. And i will gladly put "a beer" as soon as i get my paycheck by the end of the month.