Here are the updated logo image packs for the January 2009 XM programming changes as well as some siginifcant improvements. Several people has sent me requests for information about sending donations. My paypal is [email protected]. This is not a requirement as I will never charge money for these logo updates nor make conditions regarding their use.

Changes/Improvements:

- The problem with semi-transparent pixels appearing black or very dark on the large Z series logos has been fixed and these logos now appear in optimal quality as was originally intended. This is a very noticable improvment, particularly with logos that have black edges and/or small text. Technical details are below. Logos for the D/N/F series and the small Z series logos were not affected by this problem.

- All category names have been updated in the image table to reflect the new category names.

- There are now category images for all categories including the Siruis Dog logo for the "Best of Sirius" category. The Christian cross image now appears for both the "Christian" and "Religion" categories (these are all Christian stations anyways so I don't know why XM bothers with having two categories). The "Pop" category uses the jukebox logo from the obsolete "Decades" category and "More Music" uses the speaker image from the obsolete "Hits" category.

- Logos are now present for new/returning channels: Boneyard, The Bridge, xl BackSpin, and The Strobe.

- XM has changed to Westwood One's traffic service to provide the traffic channels which has resulted in changes to all traffic channel names. New traffic logos have been created to address this. I was not able %100 match the font Pioneer used on their logos but it is quite close. The traffic light image Pioneer uses comes from the old 2004 XM channel guide. A tedious search of the web successfully turned up a PDF of this old channel guide from which I was able to extract this image in high quality to use on the new logos.

- Channel 143, sometimes called the XM Sports Guide, now has an icon. This name of this channel is subject to change which can prevent the logo from appearing. Right now the name "Sports Nation" seems to used most of the time so I have set that as the name in the image table.

- Fox Business channel is currenly off the air due to some ongoing contractual dispute with XM. The logo and image table entry are still present so that a logo will be displayed in the event this channel should resume airing provided the station ID does not change.

- CNN Headline news was renamed to HLN and the new channel logo is now present.

- XM corrected the channel name of "FAMILYTALK" to "Family Talk". The image table has been updated to reflect this so the logo will appear for this channel.

- The logo for Holly and a Holiday category logo are present in the event either one of these becomes active again.

Installing:

- You will need to know how to modify the media for your particular AVIC series. See the stickied posts in the hacks/mod forum related to your unit for details.

- Locate the folder containing the XMCAT, XMDAT, XMLPS, and XMDPS directory. On the Z series this the AV subdirectory of the SDAT volume. On the F series this was reported to be MyFlashDisk/DATA/XM. On the D/N series these folders are in the root directory of the 2 map DVDs.

- As always when doing such updates on the Z and F series be sure to make backups of your XMCAT, XMDAT, XMLPS, and XMDPS directories.

- Simply copy the files in the pack over any existing files for each directory (XMCAT, XMDAT, XMLPS, and XMDPS).

First up is Z series. These have been fully tested on a Z3.

Technical details quality problem with the large Z series logos:

The quality problem occurred because the large Z logos use black (RGB 0,0,0) to indicate a pixel is completely transparent and all the logos files have the logo images placed on a pure black background. This is a terrible choice when dealing with 32-bit alpha channel images. Pixels in 32-bit alpha channel images with an alpha value of less than 255 are semi transparent and when such images are placed on top of another color, the semi transparent pixels blend with the background color into a final opaque color that is no longer semi-transparent. The actual Z series AV screen background on which logos appear is primarily white on top with a gradually darkening graient on the bottom. When the large Z series logo is generated by placing the 32-bit alpha image logo on top of a black background all the semi-transparent pixels become blended to that black background. This results in all semi-transparent pixels appearing much darker that they otherwise would be had they been placed on the intended white background. This effectively ruins the true appearance of the image. The solution to this is to recreate the actual Z series white background and use it to convert all the semi transparent pixels in the logo to the opaque color they would become had they been placed on the correct background in the first place. A study of the old Pioneer images reveal that is also the solution used by Pioneer to address this. Why Pioneer designed things this way is anyones guess.

THIS UPDATE HAS BEEN REMOVED. THE NEWER UPDATE IS HERE:

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I am unable to upload the F and D/N series pack because I'm being told that I have reached my maximum upload quota limit. I sent a PM to moderator to release me from the limit.

Thank you Vandal, you've been a great help to many of us. I hope you get released from the limit as I have an F series:) I tried to do this myself a few days ago, I got them all mapped out except I am not getting Boneyard to show up correctly. I beleive it should be named "DPS053.bmp" since it's at the same channel that AC/DC used to be at. I did that but I still have the "DPSNOT.bmp" icon when I tune to Boneyard. If you can't upload, any hints? I have everything mapped out to a spreadsheet and not sure what I did wrong. Hopefully I can pay forward the help you've provided me.

Thank you Vandal, you've been a great help to many of us. I hope you get released from the limit as I have an F series:) I tried to do this myself a few days ago, I got them all mapped out except I am not getting Boneyard to show up correctly. I beleive it should be named "DPS053.bmp" since it's at the same channel that AC/DC used to be at. I did that but I still have the "DPSNOT.bmp" icon when I tune to Boneyard. If you can't upload, any hints? I have everything mapped out to a spreadsheet and not sure what I did wrong. Hopefully I can pay forward the help you've provided me.

The station ID is 53 for Boneyard but it's not going to work unless the IMAGETBL.DAT file entry is changed accordingly. The string needs to be changed form "AC/DC Radio" to "Boneyard" and the length byte set to 8. The message thread for the November 2008 release has details about this file.

I thought it might be something in the DAT file. Unfortunately I've tried to open it with a couple different programs and hd no luck, probably getting a lttle over my head there anyway so just as well, I know enough to get myself in trouble but not enough to get out of it . Oh well, once again thanks for all your help.

An idea just popped into my head, can the IMAGETBL.DAT for the Z series be used with the F series? My guess is that it can't unless the only difference between the Z and F is image attributes and if the IMAGETBL.DAT does not specify attributes or placement of the icon on the screen.

Great Job!!!

Works awesome on my Z1 with the Z3 upgrade.

Vandal,

As always, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!! It works great for the Z series.

hate to be a pest, but any luck in getting the upload limit lifted? anxiously awaiting an update for the f series

hate to be a pest, but any luck in getting the upload limit lifted? anxiously awaiting an update for the f series

Hang on...I have send the updates to Garret Toomey who will post them shortly. I still haven't heard anything from back from the moderator, PaisanNYC.

An idea just popped into my head, can the IMAGETBL.DAT for the Z series be used with the F series? My guess is that it can't unless the only difference between the Z and F is image attributes and if the IMAGETBL.DAT does not specify attributes or placement of the icon on the screen.

Yes you can copy it...with this update the IMAGETBL.DAT files are now completely identical in the packs for all the AVIC models. In the prior release I had not yet resolved if the category names were display names for a particular AVIC model or names that were used to match against XM broadcast names like the channels. To avoid breaking anything I didn't modify the categories in the IMAGETBL.DAT file I had for each AVIC model. I now know that the category names are indeed used for matching XM broadcast category names and must match in order for a category logo to appear.

If you want to try editing the IMAGETBL.DAT manually, you'll need to use a binary file editor like WinHex. This works fine for minor things like channel name changes. Anything more complex and it becomes messy.

Vandal,

You are a credit to this forum. I hope you get your limit upgraded. Your uploads are benificial to the members and that should be what it's all about. If I'm not asking too much, could you tell me what program you use to edit the imagetbl.dat. If you don't want to say, no worries.

Thanks

Damn, message to self, read the whole message. Sorry.

On the other hand, I do use the search button

Trying this again...here is the D/N series update.

THIS UPDATE HAS BEEN REMOVED. THE NEWER UPDATE IS HERE:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=23129&start=0

The size of the F series pack is causing problems with posting so I had to break it into 2 parts. Here is the first part.

THIS UPDATE HAS BEEN REMOVED. THE NEWER UPDATE IS HERE:

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Here is the second part of the F series update.

THIS UPDATE HAS BEEN REMOVED. THE NEWER UPDATE IS HERE:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=23129&start=0

awesome, man. if i can get this working, you are my hero

First off, great job on the updates... I tried doing this but could ever figure out the padding at the end of the file. (F series) Be sending you some beer money when i get paid

The only thing I've noticed is the blue collar comedy logo is really pixelated.

First off, great job on the updates... I tried doing this but could ever figure out the padding at the end of the file. (F series) Be sending you some beer money when i get paid

 

The only thing I've noticed is the blue collar comedy logo is really pixelated.

Yes, unfortunately the Blue Collar Comedy channel logo is composed in the channel list PDF from a small bitmap image. It is the only channel logo like that. All the other channel logos are %100 scalable vector designs. Even at its original size the quality of the bitmap is quite poor. The image is supposed to be that of a name tag or logo "patch" that is sewn on work uniforms worn by "blue collar" workers.

I used Magic ISO to create an ISO of the West disc. I then copied the 4 directories from Vandal's new set to the ISO image and saved it as a new ISO. I burned the disc from the new ISO to a DL disc (which has worked before), and now I get the new channel logos but the navi is hosed.

I have an AVIC-D3, and now when I go to the map I have large areas of blue on the map, and it won't navigate anywhere.

Is this a symptom of burning too fast perhaps? Or incompatible media? Or did I do something else wrong?

Thanks!

Is this a symptom of burning too fast perhaps? Or incompatible media? Or did I do something else wrong?

I redownloaded the ISO for the West disc and tried it again and it worked beautifully. Have all the logos back and the navi works too. The original ISO had was a few K short of the one I got yesterday, and the new one also did another software update, although they were both 80 images...

Updated my logos with your files and instructions....worked like a charm. Thanks.

Vandal,

Thanks again for doing this for the latest update. Just as an FYI on my D3 very few of the categories have Icons. Not a big deal, but wanted to let you know for the next "release" . If I get a chance tomorrow when the car is out of the garage I will try to write down which ones work and post them here.

As a side note, I noticed today that the NBA channels change their station names from "NBA Play-by-Play" to "NBA" throughout the day. So sometimes there are logos and sometimes not. Strange why XM does that...

Vandal,

 

Thanks again for doing this for the latest update. Just as an FYI on my D3 very few of the categories have Icons. Not a big deal, but wanted to let you know for the next "release" . If I get a chance tomorrow when the car is out of the garage I will try to write down which ones work and post them here.

 

As a side note, I noticed today that the NBA channels change their station names from "NBA Play-by-Play" to "NBA" throughout the day. So sometimes there are logos and sometimes not. Strange why XM does that...

Thanks for the info on that, the categories are supposed to work on the D3. Unforuntately I only have a Z series available to directly test against. Can you tell me how the category name appear on the D3?

As for the play-by-play channels chaning names, this is a Pioneer and XM problem. XM doesn't broadcast any constant name other identifier for these channels to key with. Pioneer doesn't want to have a scenario where an incorrect logo is displayed if the station lineup changes so it only displays a logo when the name matches the table. XM has no support for providing station logos, its 3rd party invention and is something that XM engineers really overlooked in designing the service.

If XM would stop screwing around with the lineup and come up with a standard name prefix for these sports PBP stations then it would be possible for Pioneer to do partial name matching on these stations.

On the other hand things would be alot easier if Pioneer would release timely updates and not try to rip-off everyone for map update DVDs.

Is anyone else have problems with category logos on the D series?

Are F series units displaying category logos ok?