Pulp_Fiction said:

Ducati, I would have picked up one of your circuits but I was one of the early ones that installed a TR7. If I find a use for the TR7 elsewhere I'll get one of your circuits so I can restore the full function of the illumination line (well, not restore but use it for the first time.). My dash illumination runs off of ground not positive so it's hot all the time and I'm too lazy to run the line elsewhere to get the correct signal (GM vehicle).

Thanks for the info. If you would like one of my circuits I would be happy to send you one free of charge and a small thank you for all the info you are providing and help you are giving the Z1 community.

I find it strange that your vehicle is a negative illumination wire. Does the head unit take care of this? The wire is 12V all the time and when you turn your lights on it will go to ground? I don't mean to hijack this cool HDD thread, but I didn't know the Z1 could handle this type of illumination wire. Of course if this is the way your car functions and the Z1 will realize it's "backwards" and it will still deal with it, my circuit should be fine as well.

with a simple relay you can convert - to + or vice versa, its cake.

gerard143 said:

with a simple relay you can convert - to + or vice versa, its cake.

While that is true, if the head unit can handle ground = lights off, 12V = lights on or ground = lights on, 12V = lights off, then a relay is unnecessary. I was wondering if anyone has the "backward" setup and if the Z1 will handle it. If so, you don't need to do anything for my circuit. I would think it would handle it.

ducatiboy said:

Thanks for the info. If you would like one of my circuits I would be happy to send you one free of charge and a small thank you for all the info you are providing and help you are giving the Z1 community.

I find it strange that your vehicle is a negative illumination wire. Does the head unit take care of this? The wire is 12V all the time and when you turn your lights on it will go to ground? I don't mean to hijack this cool HDD thread, but I didn't know the Z1 could handle this type of illumination wire. Of course if this is the way your car functions and the Z1 will realize it's "backwards" and it will still deal with it, my circuit should be fine as well.

Thanks for the offer, I'll PM you my address. That will force me to open up the dash again and fix the rest of the unfinished parts listed above too. :)

Brief hijack ok. The thread is growing to the point where a new summary thread as a sticky will be in order once this is mostly solved anyway I feel.

I made a new post on the illumination thing since somebody surely has already solved this some obviously simple way I didn't think of.

http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3595#3595

gerard143 said:

with a simple relay you can convert - to + or vice versa, its cake.

As I just posted in the other thread I didn't want to use a relay. I'm sure there is the correct power source somewhere in this car I can use. I just haven't hunted for it yet.

replied to ur other post

For those curious I copied some MP3's to the folders where my current ripped music is stored and they didn't show up.

Next steps: I'm going to try changing some file names
Then do a before and after of adding another CD to the Z1 and see what changes.

hey pulp where in LA are you? i think im just gonna bring a few hdds and my z1 ( I gotta replacement contract so if i break mine i can get a new one free of charge ) and im in san diego im thinkin we can work on this and get it done

ducati how many of these circuts can you produce ( i gotta friend who wants about 20 of them ) and what kinda duc do you ride ? i gotta 996 and a hayabusa

phiberoptik said:

ducati how many of these circuts can you produce ( i gotta friend who wants about 20 of them ) and what kinda duc do you ride ? i gotta 996 and a hayabusa

I can make 20 of them. It will take me a couple days, but I have made quite a few. I will take an order for 20, if he really wants that many. Just point him towards my post.

And very nice bikes, good choices. In my "stable" I have:

2001 Ducati 996 (yellow biposto with termi CF pipes),
http://www.sminnick.com/IMGP2864.JPG
2003 Ninja ZX12R (Akro Pipe, PC3, Filter, 179HP dynoed at the wheel)
http://www.sminnick.com/zx12r/IMG_0258.jpg
1998 Yamaha V-Max (All new suspension, and Mark's pipes)
http://www.sminnick.com/IMG_0261.JPG

And a Polaris Sportsman 800 http://www.sminnick.com/IMGP2866.JPG

I love the fast bikes! Can you ever have enough toys?

phiberoptik said:

hey pulp where in LA are you? i think im just gonna bring a few hdds and my z1 ( I gotta replacement contract so if i break mine i can get a new one free of charge ) and im in san diego im thinkin we can work on this and get it done

ducati how many of these circuts can you produce ( i gotta friend who wants about 20 of them ) and what kinda duc do you ride ? i gotta 996 and a hayabusa

Remember, I cannot unlock the locked drive. I payed for that part. What I've done is protect the drive from relocking and imaged a larger drive.

What we did discover was that the drives come unlocked and the Z1 locks them on first use. If you get your Z1 make sure the box is sealed and don't plug it in! Then you can do this at no real cost.

What would be interesting to test is what happens when an unlocked drive that has seen live time in a Z1 (mine for instance) is installed in another Z1. Is there a marriage process that prevents the drives from being moved other than the ATA lock?

Results from testing.
I have captured all the changed files from adding a CD to the system. There are quite a few that get created. They look straight forward but would be a pain to create by hand.

No MP3's would get recognized regardless of name or format. I didn't try one thing I meant to which was change the extention to .AT3 on an mp3 to try and get the Z1 to load it. Perhaps the codec's are present already. Guess I'm tired.

Oh, and I'm in West LA.

Duc- i'm not gonna do the busa/zx12 debate ( hehe ) Nice rides though i wanna get a 748 for a track bike but we'll see how it goes. i'm outta town for another week as soon as i get back i'll get with travis and see how many he wants ( i threw 20 out there as a round number but i know he's gonna want between 20-30 of them )


pulp- would it just be easier to send you up another harddrive and you image it and send it back?

I wonder if you could creat a program to do it all automatically. I would think that you could create a directory of MP3's on your hard drive, and then point a program at that directory and then have it creat and/or convert all the MP3's to what it needs to and then creat new directries on the drive for you. It might not be that tough to write a program to do that. Maybe that will be my next project. :)

ducatiboy said:

I wonder if you could creat a program to do it all automatically. I would think that you could create a directory of MP3's on your hard drive, and then point a program at that directory and then have it creat and/or convert all the MP3's to what it needs to and then creat new directries on the drive for you. It might not be that tough to write a program to do that. Maybe that will be my next project. :)

Once we've got the format needed.. sounds like a plan, I'm playing with stuff this end as well

BigFloppy said:

ducatiboy said:

I wonder if you could creat a program to do it all automatically. I would think that you could create a directory of MP3's on your hard drive, and then point a program at that directory and then have it creat and/or convert all the MP3's to what it needs to and then creat new directries on the drive for you. It might not be that tough to write a program to do that. Maybe that will be my next project. :)

Once we've got the format needed.. sounds like a plan, I'm playing with stuff this end as well

Cool, if you do... OR IF ANYONE does start writing a program to do this, either share that you are working on it or collaborate between others with some software skill. I would hate to spend hours making some program to do this while someone else is doing the same work. I don't care who get the "credit" for writing something like this, I just hate doing double work. :)

The audio file extension at3 is a sony format that was used for minidisk and still is in japan as far as i know. to my knowledge there is no software taht will convert from mp3 to at3 directly you would have to go to audio in between. you can however get some old minidisk software and code your own at3 files. I assume that they have done this to avoid copyright infringement laws and since minidisk is still popular in japan they probably had license for the software already.

yes there is.... read my posts and links and follow up link that was provided by another user, there is software all over that will convert and mp3 or wav to at3

The Sony's SonicStage software that supplied with minidiscs can convert multiple MP3s into ATRAC files, however resulting files will be with .omg extension. I can try to play Z1's AT3 file in SonicStage to see if they are compatible...

Oops, forgot to login - the previous post is mine;)

ducatiboy said:

I wonder if you could creat a program to do it all automatically. I would think that you could create a directory of MP3's on your hard drive, and then point a program at that directory and then have it creat and/or convert all the MP3's to what it needs to and then creat new directries on the drive for you. It might not be that tough to write a program to do that. Maybe that will be my next project. :)

If we can get to that point I'd say lets take 1 step further and find a way to write a program that will auto execute and copy all the converted files onto the Z1 HDD from a CD/DVD. Maybe thats just a dreamer idea but if we could do that then it would open the door for less tech savy to copy their music.

Anyway just an idea oh and great work you are all doing btw.

Wow this topic exploded! Great work Pulp! ive also been trying to play the at3 files and have had no luck, ive tried to burn them on a disk to see if the unit would play them but no luck, were getting so close now, only a matter of time now.
jake

i considered the eclipse avn4595 before i decided to go with teh z1. I just noticed the avn has no access to teh hard drive. Its teh same hard drive im sure, 30 gig with 10 gig for ripping. but they do have a memory stick slot where they can upload mp3 directly.. once we get the hd figred out they will be sad :)

Time for more updates.

The AT3 files do not play in much of anything. Putting an MP3 on the drive doesn't get recognized and even upsets the Z1 a little on the previous song - it must be looking ahead or something

You can get the codec here: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Sony_ATRAC3_Audio_Codec.htm

I tried running some of the files in a Windows CE5.0 emulator and it didn't recognize them as Win CE programs. In Windows XP they are seen as "not valid Win32 applications". Probably the processor used in the Z1 but I hoped for a better error message.

I've searched the drive for system files and found nothing but data and a couple of applications. The OS must be loaded in the Z1's flash memory. Now finding a way to get at that will be a real challenge. I don't want to remove and take apart my Z1 (until I break it of course). This said the few application files may be the key to getting another application to load. I will delete one of them and see how the Z1 reacts to it being gone. From what I've found the Z1 makes a lot of backup copies of files and these may be just copies, not live apps.
Application names:
av.exe
download.exe
hmimanager.exe
navi.exe
voice.exe
vrtest.exe
testdisc.exe
a bunch of dll's in the directories with them.

Download.exe is what I thought would be the app to copy the CD's to the Z1 but it's just a wild guess. Putting the file in an editor doesn't tell much.
English stuff in Download.exe:
This program cannot be run in DOS mode.
Bcds2c+C
MENU\EUNSDownload.rff USB\TargetDataRaku\SDATA\PRG0\APL\MENU\EUNSDownload.rff %s CARD\TargetDataRaku\SDATA\PRG0\APL\MENU\EUNSDownload.rff U S B \ T a r g e t D a t a R a k u \ S D A T A \ P R G 0 \ A P L \ M E N U C A R D \ T a r g e t D a t a R a k u \ S D A T A \ P R G 0 \ A P L \ M E N U \
UIN_WIN_RnwFsUpdateUnappropriate UIN_WIN_RnwFsUpdateStartInstall UIN_WIN_RnwFsUpdateSkipRetry UIN_WIN_RnwFsUpdateRetry UIN_WIN_RnwFsUpdateRequestNextDisc UIN_WIN_RnwFsUpdateProgress UIN_WIN_RnwFsUpdateDiscEject UIN_WIN_RnwFsUpdateDiscCheck UIN_WIN_RnwFsUpdateAbortRetry UIN_WIN_RnwFsUpdateAbort
This is a test for message text. Hello
Count Output Action at Data Full Data Clearness at Startup Flushing Cache Cache Function at File Output Output Destination Immediate Output Point Info Digital TV Info TMC Info ANY Browser Info Data Update Info State Watcher Info PC Link Info Telephone Info Navi Studio NSWIN Navi Studio NSCTL Navi Studio NSCC Navi Studio NSRPS Navi Studio NSLRQ Navi Studio NSLRD Navi Studio NSLBD Navi Studio NSLAM Navi Studio NSEVM Navi Studio NSEVT Screen Info Operation Info Error Info File Info Memory Usage Display Memory Usage Info Memory Block Info Memory Info Renewal Info Data Server Info Server Access Info APL System Info APL Management Info Voice Play Info Voice Info COM(RAS) Info Agent Info UI Info HMI Management Info MSV Info AV Info Highway Info VICS Info Search Info Guide Info Path Info Map Info Location Info Log Function
AdjustUrl(under) AdjustUrl(over) https:// http://

There are a lot of function names in the file. Too many to list.

The reference to a path with "card" in it and the http:// both make me think there is something to using this download.exe file to update the unit and not "download" the files to the unit.

I don't dissassemble code, this is just viewing the file with an editor. I don't even know what language this was compiled from

I'm starting to think the music files might be mildly encrypted or the format tweeked when they are being ripped. Something I've tried should have at least recognized the format.
Two ways I'm thinking we can go:
First might be to see if we can utilize the converter within the Z1 but on our PC's and rip the stuff out of the car at least. This way a script could be written to convert the MP3's to Wav and then to AT3. I hate doing that to the quality but for most of us we are doing that now anyway when we create CD's from our mp3's and then load them in the Z1

Second will be seeing if we can load a different player onto the unit that supports MP3, WMA, Etc.

I'm still waiting to read a reply from the person with the PSP and if that worked?

Piberoptik: I don't want to get into the business of creating HDD's. There are copyright issues if I send stuff out. Making a backup is within our legal rights. I'll tell you everything you need to know to do it but I want to keep this legal so we don't end up with threatening letters coming to the board host (I've had that happen twice on other issues - once the board host moved his site offline the other time we all got censored and the board died).

On the bike debate. Have you seen the new king yet? ZX14 - 200hp - 9 second 1/4 mile stock!

OK, who can read Japanese???

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... avistudio/

BigFloppy said:

OK, who can read Japanese???

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... avistudio/

My guess:
http://pioneer.jp/press/release166.html

wow would u look at the graphics on that.


The new models employ VGA monitors capable of displaying high-resolution images and making details such as roads, text data, and logo marks easier to view. Three- dimensional map modes, such as Solid City Map and Sky City Map, display the shapes and external appearance of buildings with a greater sense of reality on the map screen.

The AVIC-VH009MD, AVIC-VH009, and AVIC-ZH009 are equipped with a 5.1 multi-channel processor for playback of multi-channel programs such as DVD-Videos and the MPEG-2 A
Also, up to six candidate routes are displayed with the information of the travel distance, normal travel time, travel time reflecting congestion forecasts, and costs on a single screen.


wow can the avic-z1 tell you the cost of gas on your route?


how long has the avic-z1 been out?

does the avic-z1 support 5.1 audio?



wonder if i should wait