Sony NV-U50 Theres is a way to add Camera Locations POI Etc

Dippy · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 124

I know. It's horrendous. It took me three days.

But I've posted full (and I mean full) English instructions here:

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=211253#211253

I just hope that's useful to someone. Any problems with them, add to that thread so we can all benefit from any tweaks etc.

2216 · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 10, 2005 Posts: 245

I have installed and is now running speed cameras on my NAV_U50T thanks to Dippy. I just had to have a couple of days free time to do it.

Dippy · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 124

Well done mate. There's just you and me in the UK then! Exclusivity or what!

Smile

For my part, I used the AT&T speech engine to produce the wav files - so I now have another lady in the Sony who politely says "thirty miles an hour maximum ahead please" or whatever as appropriate. Sweet!

2216 · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 10, 2005 Posts: 245

I have now subscribed to GPS world speed camaras as I got it running on an old data set ( January I think ) so it's all go. Again if I get time I will try some differant voices.
What I like about POI observer is that it gives far less false alarms because of the 8deg angle and not as the Tom Tom does just on distance. I did set the POI to 15 sec which adds to the vehicle speed, the greater the speed the long in distance we get.

PS. Can I thank all the back room guys in producing POI observer and VirtComMgr. It does look like it's on a lot of platforms. Smile

kieronishere · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 24, 2006 Posts: 23

so you two, how much of a faf is it do start up the sony each time you get into the car - is it seconds or minutes to get up and running. And are there any other downsides of doing this that you've found?

Dippy · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 124

Bit of a faff.

Start it
Go to desktop
SOMETIMES you need to restart Virtcomm with a Deactivate followed by Activate
Press terminate in POI Observer
Double click POI Observer to restart it
Double click Sony software

Takes about 30 seconds. Not brilliant but bearable.

If you want to just start the Sony software without POI Observer then you don't need to do anything as long as Virtcomm is still running (mostly it is). In that case it all works as normal with no speed camera warnings until you restart POI Observer.

PeteCymru · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 21, 2006 Posts: 9

Dippy, thanks for all your work on this. I've installed POIObserver and got the camera warnings working fine - but I don't seem to be able to get both the Sony software and POIOBserver to read the GPS signal at the same time, one or the other works but having POIObserver running seems to hog the GPS signal, same if the Sony s/w is working POI won't.

I've checked and rechecked the steps but just can't fix it. Am I missing something obvious?

Cheers

Dippy · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 124

Sounds like it must be virtcomm. Are you sure you've

Set virtcom to read from com 5 as the source
Set virtcom to output to com 0
Changed the prefs.ini on your Sony unit to read comport=0 in the [gps] section
Told POI Observer to read from virtcom, NOT standalone, by pressing the button underneath "Activate" in POI Observer?

If it's not those, we'll think harder.

2216 · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 10, 2005 Posts: 245

PeteCymru m8 I had the same problem it's all down to prefs.ini file that has not been changed even though you think you have. What I do is to reset the Sony through the reset hole in the base. Then active sync copy, edit and resave. Copy virtcomng.dll to windows, short cuts to the three progs and away you go.

PeteCymru · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 21, 2006 Posts: 9

Thanks for the replies guys. 2216, good call - Prefs.ini was set to 5 even though I *know* I checked it several times...

Dippy, definitely to do with the virtual port setup.

Virtcom was set OK, the only thing I've changed since I posted (other than prefs.ini) was the source port on POIObserver - it defaulted to Com5 so I changed it to Com0 (though it does work when set to Com5, which I guess is to be expected - maybe it blocks the serial port while the virtual port can be shared?). Anyway, Sony and POIObserver appear to be happily coexisting now - result! So, thanks again.

Hope the following helps some folks:
Start menu is a real pain to get to show as Dippy says, so I recalibrated the touch screen to have a slight offset so that the stylus touches just above the point you actually want to touch - seems to help. This can be done either through Start-Settings-Control Panel-Stylus or through the Sony software settings. Doesn't affect normal operation as long as the offset isn't excessive.

If you have to reset the unit but are nowhere near a PC to put the desktop shortcuts back, or put Virtcomng.dll back in the Windows folder this can be done using CE:
While you *are* connected to a PC, put a copy of Virtcomng.dll somewhere (I keep it in the "My Flash Disk" folder).
If you're on the road, after resetting the unit, Start-Menu-Windows Explorer
Menu View-Options
Uncheck the "Do Not Show Hidden Files and Folders" button so you can see the Sony folder
Copy the Virtcomng.dll file and paste it into the Windows folder (hold the stylus down to see the copy etc. menu - hope this isn't insulting anyone's intelligence)
Copy the three executables from the relevant folders and paste as shortcuts into windows\desktop
Restart

Useful to keep a stylus handy.....

Dippy · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 124

Nice - thanks for that. Once we have the basic method going then little tips like those to ease the mechanics of using it are excellent. Thanks!

If someone wants to hack about to get the virtcomm.dll into the windows directory automatically on startup and then run POI Observer followed by the Sony software that would be a big help too. It could then be completely seamless. I tried but no success - ought to be able to do it via the so called "registry" that CE has perhaps, but haven't chased that one through, or maybe there's a better approach anyway. Anyone?

2216 · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 10, 2005 Posts: 245

Iam sure I read somewhere that regedit was used to alter the registry for an other platform, maybe thats the way to go.

Dippy · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 124

If only it were so simple.... Smile

There is no native "regedit" for CE, although there are some programs around that let you work as if there were.

PeteCymru · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 21, 2006 Posts: 9

I'm finding I can leave the Sony software running when I switch off. All I have to do when I switch back on is pull up the taskbar (easier now with the stylus offset), maximise POIObserver, deactivate then reactivate, "OK" then it's good to go. About 5 seconds, I can live with that.

Quick question - if you want to use a time warning instead of distance, do you just use (e.g.) "15s" in the IV Dist field of POI Configurator? The manual isn't very clear (well it might be in German but Confused

).

Dippy · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 124

Yes, that technique usually works. I haven't identified why it doesn't ALWAYS work (at least for me). As you say, when it does, then it's pretty trivial to intialise it all.

I put 10s in the IV Dist field and sure enough it warns with about ten seconds to go, yes.

Glad you got it working! I'm now toying with adding some spoken information about historical points as well as speed cameras, so it will tell me when I'm passing an interesting castle and a little about it, for example.

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