BlackBear

I had my DVD stolen by a valet. The dealer wants like $175 for a new one.

Can I just burn one off an original from a friend? Will this work?

big_ipaq

Yes will work, but no offence, you are doing exactly what valet did. Regardless that he did steal it, you should not.

Copy an original bought from your dealer, and this way, you don't care if another valet will steal it again or if the cat will scratch it.

Keep the original safe.

freed0m

I find that using DVD+R is the best disc format for backup purposes...

madoon

i keep the original dvd at home, burn a copy and keep that in the car...that way i dont have to worry about it being stolen, or damaged or lost... if anything happens i simply burn another copy from the original backup...

if there is a new dvd at the dealer my suggestion is buy the newer dvd,..if you 07 dvd hasnt been released yet then get a copy from your friend untill the 07 is released then get that...

geokr1

$175 is cheap. I got an e-mail from the Nav company that the '07 DVD is out now for $199. Buy it, copy it and save the original in a safe place. My copy works fine - used Roxio 7 and there appeared to be no copyright protection so I don't think they'll mind. IMHO the Nav program should be on an internal hard drive anyway - listen up BMW!

dlevi67

And exactly how do you propose that one updates that? There's about 3-4 GB of data, and given the speed of the OBD port, it's going to take a dealer several months to download it all...

Backup of original and using copy is by far the most sensible option.

geokr1

I think there's all manner of options for installing and updating a hard drive or flash memory without paving new ground. I'm not familiar with the OBD port but why couldn't a common USB port be the means of updating software, all kinds of software. If the car is just a LAN with multiple components isn't there a common means of doing it all from a single point? Or are we stuck with multiple data formats operating over independent circuits? Enquiring minds want to know.

I have a portable Tom Tom in my other car that has around 11 gig of Nav data on it (capable of 20) and updates are done online through a USB port, why couldn't a dealer do the same? Or an owner with an iPod or other portable data storage device. This ain't rocket science. We're not paving any new ground here. By the way, that 3-4 gig of data is what disappoints me about the BMW Nav system. The Tom Tom has the whole of Western Europe, North America, Puerto Rico, Guam and the friggin' Virgin Islands on it plus 38 voices (including your very own John Cleese) to suit any language or personal taste at half the price of the BMW option. And a touch screen. The resolution is much better, particularly in Perspective mode, and I can program it to go anywhere in 1/4th the time it takes to do it in the BMW. If I could slave the 16:9 screen on the dashboard to the video output of the Tom Tom I would trash the rest and use just that. Big disappointment for a car that should be state of the art there, too.

Thanks! I feel better now!

Oh - one other thing. My g/f has a GPS system in her airplane with every North American airport and all data associated with it, all airways, all instrument approaches, radio frequencies and a bunch of other data including major highways. It gets updated every 56 days. She just pulls out a little 1"x1" card from the face of the unit, pops it into her computer, updates it from Jeppesen and plugs it back in. Voila! Why couldn't you do that with a BMW? Nope - we got DVDs. Powerful technology, that!

thirty6chambers

i disagree. this is software we're talking about... it only costs BMW a few cents to produce. You already paid for the right to use the content of the software so why should you pay for it again?

big_ipaq

If so, why he does not call BMW with original invoice for a duplicate?!?

dlevi67

You are welcome.

Yes, the technological means are there. But not on the car. Look at the mess and cost that the iPod interface causes. And - to be honest - a DVD is not a bad medium for storage up to 5 GB. It's robust, cheap (also to implement), widespread and relatively difficult to tamper with (in the sense that it does not give you access to the innards of the car, whereas a USB interface does. The reason why the OBD interface is so damn slow is because it encrypts everything back and forth... or so I'm told).

I'd love to hear John Cleese giving me directions. As long as he does not insist I do one of his silly walks before turning.

I think we all agree that the BMW Nav is NOT leading edge. I can't help feeling that lead times in car design and the insistence on proprietary rather than industry/open standards will mean that the F10 will have John Cleese, global mapping and a touch screen, but by then stand-alone navigators will have direct telepathic input or something like that. You can't win with technology.