Nav 2010-11 copied DVD check ?

[Mavster]

I recently bought a copy of the latest navigation disc for my W211 from a guy on Ebay ( Yes, I know...)

Anyway it works ok, but my question is : How can I check that it is actually the latest version? The orginal in my car was version 5.5 from 2006, which had the TMC already. I thought the TMC would be better than the original on this version, but it still doesn't pick up on traffic on a road all the time, just sometimes. The maps look subtley different, but I haven't noticed much else that is different.

Are there any major changes that I can simply check to see if I have infact got the 2010/ 2011 disc

 

[G.O'Rilla]

I don't think that its ever a good idea to buy a copy....... I'm surprised that you are even asking about the versions - suggest to keep this to yourself

 

[Howard]

Copied ones can burn out your laser eventually.

 

[Smatt]

Copied ones can burn out your laser eventually.

Que ??

 

[Markedes]

How do they burn the laser ?

Thanks

 

[Burger]

There is a myth that a copied DVD can cause the laser to fail because of over activity. The myth claiming that the data on the copied DVD is fragmented and so the laser and laser transport mechanism has to work harder. Of course anyone who understands what happens when files are transfered from one disc to another will realise this is nonsense and especially if the DVD is burned from a disc image.

I've also read another myth that because some discs are inferior quality that the laser has to work harder to penetrate the surface and yet another that the material of recordable DVD's is too reflective and so the laser basically somehow lasers itself to death.

The simple truth is a copied DVD will be unfragmented and the laser works at the same strength regardless. I suppose it would be possible if a DVD was too thick that it could contact the laser head and somehow damage it, but I imagine the navigation unit would fail to load or read the disc long before that happened.

I suspect what's really happened is that some navigation units have failed while the owners have been using copied DVD's and thus the birth of another internet fact

Having said all that, I would never condone the use of pirated software simply because taken to the extreme the software will cease to exist due to lack of funds. In the meantime it's already more expensive than it should be because of piracy. It's simply not fair that the honest few should support the greedy wants of the many.

If you want to be absolutely certain you have the latest software therefore you should purchase the latest legitimately and then you'll be in no doubt.

 

[Diesel Benz]

There is a myth that a copied DVD can cause the laser to fail because of over activity. The myth claiming that the data on the copied DVD is fragmented and so the laser and laser transport mechanism has to work harder. Of course anyone who understands what happens when files are transfered from one disc to another will realise this is nonsense and especially if the DVD is burned from a disc image.

I've also read another myth that because some discs are inferior quality that the laser has to work harder to penetrate the surface and yet another that the material of recordable DVD's is too reflective and so the laser basically somehow lasers itself to death.

The simple truth is a copied DVD will be unfragmented and the laser works at the same strength regardless. I suppose it would be possible if a DVD was too thick that it could contact the laser head and somehow damage it, but I imagine the navigation unit would fail to load or read the disc long before that happened.

I suspect what's really happened is that some navigation units have failed while the owners have been using copied DVD's and thus the birth of another internet fact

Having said all that, I would never condone the use of pirated software simply because taken to the extreme the software will cease to exist due to lack of funds. In the meantime it's already more expensive than it should be because of piracy. It's simply not fair that the honest few should support the greedy wants of the many.

If you want to be absolutely certain you have the latest software therefore you should purchase the latest legitimately and then you'll be in no doubt.

Off topic but I've never heard of those myths you explain. However it is a fact that burnt DVDs are harder to read, the reflectivity is lower and the DVD drive may more easily miss the data at the first read attempt and then needs to physically work harder. Multiple attempts stress the mechanical parts and at some point the DVD drive cannot be controlled sufficiently to enable data being read correctly. Obviously the DVD drive would eventually fail irrespectively of the DVD media but a burnt DVD should make fail sooner. I leave it for each reader to decide if this is a myth and if not, how much difference the two can make.

 

[Diesel Benz]

I recently bought a copy of the latest navigation disc for my W211 from a guy on Ebay ( Yes, I know...)

Anyway it works ok, but my question is : How can I check that it is actually the latest version? The orginal in my car was version 5.5 from 2006, which had the TMC already. I thought the TMC would be better than the original on this version, but it still doesn't pick up on traffic on a road all the time, just sometimes. The maps look subtley different, but I haven't noticed much else that is different.

Are there any major changes that I can simply check to see if I have infact got the 2010/ 2011 disc

Read one of the smaller files from the DVD on your PC and you should find some release info.

 

[Rory]

I thought the TMC would be better than the original on this version, but it still doesn't pick up on traffic on a road all the time, just sometimes.

I wouldn't expect the DVD to affect TMC in any way - it either works or it doesn't.

On the C Class DVD (different to yours, but maybe the original data is all the same) the street index is hopeless on earlier versions of the DVD so inputting addresses is a real pain. That's much better on later versions.

 

[Burger]

Off topic but I've never heard of those myths you explain.

I agree off topic to the OP's question but it became sort of on topic when someone made an inaccurate statement and questions were asked. Have a trawl around some of the US MB sites and you'll come across all sorts of myths around MB optical drives and recordable media.

However it is a fact that burnt DVDs are harder to read, the reflectivity is lower

While that statement used to be true and still is to a marginal extent for re-writable media the difference in reflectivity between a commercially produced (pressed) optical disc and a record once (etched or thermically written) optical disc is negligible.

Keep in mind please I'm talking about good branded discs here not the bucket of 15 gazillion unnamed recordable DVD's from Stuffed PC's 'r' Us.

and the DVD drive may more easily miss the data at the first read attempt and then needs to physically work harder.

If an optical drive fails to read the header data of a given track and the checksum fails against the bit length or any other aspect the track is determined unreadable. If this occurs a number of times (dependant on the drive sw/fw) then the disc itself is determined unreadable. There are many more factors that govern media readability including entire disc checksum fails at first read but the drive does not endlessly attempt to read the same data over and over.

Multiple attempts stress the mechanical parts and at some point the DVD drive cannot be controlled sufficiently to enable data being read correctly.

A moving bouncing rocking car is probably the worst environment for any mechanical drive (Perhaps a ship is worse) These drives have to work over-time snatching tiny snippets of data and filling their buffers simply because of the environment they reside in. This is a fact no matter how the disc was produced. The difference in activity for the laser, lens and transport mechanisms between a pressed disc and an etched one is therefore so infitesimal that it's irrelevant and negligible in such an unsuitable environment.

Obviously the DVD drive would eventually fail irrespectively of the DVD media

Precisely.

but a burnt DVD should make fail sooner.

No proof or evidence of this whatsoever. For some odd reason the myth seems to persist on Mercedes forums.

I leave it for each reader to decide if this is a myth and if not, how much difference the two can make.

Agreed

Regards,

 

[Howard]

Que ??

Here we go , it's been discussed before. I realise that Alfie makes his living selling discs and comands , but i'll trust what he says.

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/electronics/48279-copied-navigation-disks.html

 

[Burger]

Here we go , it's been discussed before. I realise that Alfie makes his living selling discs and comands , but i'll trust what he says.

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/electronics/48279-copied-navigation-disks.html

As I said above I don't condone piracy for one second but I would hope 7+ years in the disc mastering and duplication business including time spent on development of optical drive technology and manufacture would give my comments some credibility.

There again, on this forum, where knowledge, facts and experience seem to count for little, who knows?

In this day and age with so much misinformation so freely available to everyone it's no wonder that people form incorrect beliefs. It also means those who do actually know are much less likely to be believed, especially when contradicting what a previous trusted source has stated as fact or that can be debunked elsewhere on the web.

Don't get me wrong, there's tons of good information around too, but the only real way to sort it all out is from direct understanding, experience and knowledge.

That's why I agree absolutely with Diesel Benz, everyone should make up their own minds

Regards,

 

[Howard]

There again, on this forum, where knowledge, facts and experience seem to count for little, who knows?

Regards,

Who has said this , or is this a jibe at me ?

I would argue that it counts for everything , there are experts from all walks of life on here , and that's what makes this forum so great.

 

[Burger]

Who has said this , or is this a jibe at me ?

Absolutely not at you Howard or anyone in particular - apologies for giving that impression.

Regards,

 

[Deleted member 37751]

As I said above I don't condone piracy for one second but I would hope 7+ years in the disc mastering and duplication business including time spent on development of optical drive technology and manufacture would give my comments some credibility.

There again, on this forum, where knowledge, facts and experience seem to count for little, who knows?

In this day and age with so much misinformation so freely available to everyone it's no wonder that people form incorrect beliefs. It also means those who do actually know are much less likely to be believed, especially when contradicting what a previous trusted source has stated as fact or that can be debunked elsewhere on the web.

Don't get me wrong, there's tons of good information around too, but the only real way to sort it all out is from direct understanding, experience and knowledge.

That's why I agree absolutely with Diesel Benz, everyone should make up their own minds

Regards,

Generally, I look out for your posts because they are informative and always worthy of a good read.

With regards the above snippet, I think it's a bit below the belt to the general population of the forum that you think that knowledge, facts and experience count for little on here.

May I ask, what has given you this impression?

 

[Alfie]

In my experience of these navigation disks copied disks cause problems.

Search this forum for others who have used copies, found they are unreliable and have caused their comand to run hot. Pop in a genuine disk and the comand runs at the correct temperature and reads the disk quickly.

Any mechanical/optical device that has to perform more re-reads/accesses to try to recover data will fail earlier than one that doesnt.

I say all this because this has been my actual experience. It is what ive read here and seen with my own eyes.

 

[Burger]

Generally, I look out for your posts because they are informative and always worthy of a good read.

With regards the above snippet, I think it's a bit below the belt to the general population of the forum that you think that knowledge, facts and experience count for little on here.

May I ask, what has given you this impression?

OK, firstly thank you and secondly I apologise unreservedly to the general population of the forum for making the comment. If I could edit it out, I would, but hopefully this apology will suffice.

I'd rather the thread didn't detract any further from the subject and so I'd prefer not to discuss it further. Again though, please accept my apology for the comment.

Regards,

 

[Burger]

In my experience of these navigation disks copied disks cause problems.

Search this forum for others who have used copies, found they are unreliable and have caused their comand to run hot. Pop in a genuine disk and the comand runs at the correct temperature and reads the disk quickly.

Any mechanical/optical device that has to perform more re-reads/accesses to try to recover data will fail earlier than one that doesnt.

I say all this because this has been my actual experience. It is what ive read here and seen with my own eyes.

Alfie,

I don't dispute any of that for a second except that it takes no regard for the quality of the copy. Again, and so there's no mistake, I absolutely abhor piracy and am not trying to encourage it.

However, it's simply not accurate to say all copied discs are bad and all copied discs cause an MB nav drive to over heat. A copy on poor quality media or re-writable media may well have this effect, and if you say it does then I have no reason to doubt you, but a copy on good quality, read only media should have no detrimental effects at all.

Keep in mind please that nowadays many OEM discs are mastered using etching techniques as opposed to the more traditional stamping. I'm not saying this is the case for MB nav discs but considering they must be relatively low production volumes it's certainly more likely.

I personally will always use an original and that will always be my recommendation to anyone else but this is because of software piracy driving up costs and nothing at all to do with the technicalities of copies.

Regards,

 

[Sp!ke]

Copied DVD's are an awfully unreliable media. I'll even go as far as to say one time use only.

Only in my humble experience of course.

But anyway we shouldnt be discussing or condoning pirated software here so this thread will self destruct shortly - sorry folks.

 

[Markedes]

Many thanks Burger (Dave) , Each and all on the Forum will have opinions, perceptions, Knowledge and experiance. This makes the Site an excellant tool to use in bringing people together and helping along the way.

As a new owner of the Mercedes badge, the site has been invaluable and have enjoyed wading through reams of posts to find solutions, sometimes differing , but have enjoyed the challenge.

Regards

Mark

Ps my Disc has not been burnt yet