No name Chinese car head unit

I don't see any reason to go for a WINCE head unit (even for the extra few quid off a WINCE unit), if mine still worked 100% I saw no reason to go out and buy another one running Android, but as I am having to relapace mine, after dong my research it'll be a head unit running Android I'll be going for,

but doing some research, I get the impression that even the head units that run Android still have a Chinese OS for the entertainment part of the head unit and Android sits on top of this OS, not sure how true this is or if they are all like this

I do think Microsoft has dropped the ball on so many things, Ipod/Zoom, iPhone/Lumia, iPad/Surface and to top that Android must be eating away at their customer base daily

One thing that I've read is that one can't or very difficult to upgrade the Android version on the unit as it will/might interfere with playing nicely with the Chinese part of the OS

,
 
The OS is usually customized for the head unit ...
So unless the manufacturer offers an update . Even with phones these days , you want an update from the manufacturer ..
Since the Android OS will be built to be device specific ...
 
Android is bigger than windows now, or at least damn close according to a article i red on the internet recently.
It is weird a company like Microsoft can drop the ball as bad as they have, i guess that just goes to proof the bigger they are the harder they fall.

I think when i get a android radio in the car it will be the one devise of mine with the most apps on it, on my phone i really keep those down to a absolute minimum.
 
well my new Android head unit arrived yesterday, early days yet so can’t say how good it is, but one thing I have already noticed that I like, and that is when using the old WINCE head unit, I could/did have GPS showing on the screen while music was playing in the background but my big bug bearer was that when the sea nav had instructions to say, the music would stop maybe 4 or 5 seconds before the GPS spoke and didn’t re start the music for about 4 or 5 seconds after it had finished giving instructions,

thats all and good if you’re on a motorway and only get this once or twice on your trip but if it’s not a motorway but an ordinary road with roundabouts and cross roads you find that a complete song has played and you’ve not heard one word from it as when it stops the music to talk, the music still plays but in mute

what I noticed with this one if music is playing in the background and you have the GPS on, when the GPS gives you instructions the music doesn’t stop it still plays, but you have the control to reduce the music volume from 100% right down to 0% so I found that reducing the music volume to about 40% was just right, a great feature this

loved the fact I’ve been downloading Navmii, I love this sat nav on my iPhone but there was no way I could get it on the WINCE head unit, so first thing this morning I downloaded it to the head unit, still playing around with it trying to figure out whats what as the instruction manual as we know, isn’t as good as it could be in English so just too many ambiguities of what they are trying to say, don’t know what I’d do without forums :)

I soon changed the start up screen to my car logo, the unit comes with around 90 car logos, even the MG logo, a British car company that went bell up in 2005 and now the Chinese own it, it sells around 3 cars a week but it has the logo but not one for the Lotus, so I had to make my own and installed that

P1180079-_SMALL-.jpg


this is OK for now, but what I would love to do is have the as an animation start up screen, a cold start for the head unit is around 25 to 30 seconds, so my animated clip is 38 seconds and as the last 10 / 15 or so seconds of my clip is a still image, the end of the start up won’t cut in to the animation, here it is


I will ad, I didn’t make this animation, I cut and edited it from the Lotus F1 team (Genii, who used the name under licence) promo clip

I did read something that it has to be cut in to still images to be able to work, can anyone shine some light on this, and is it something an amateur like me can attempt?
 
Perhaps a series of stills .. (?)
I tried to do animation for my head unit and no go .. its a BMP or nothing ( actually I can use JPG with special instructions )
If your GPS software supports some sort of video / motion graphics ? ( animated GIF / flash )
 
I've since read (on some forum) that one of the smart phone manufacturers, forgot who, maybe Motorola, Samsung or one of their likes has been able to make a animation start up using MP4 file and then save it as "bootanimation.zip" file, I've got my work cut out

I came across this animated Rover logo (over)
200w.gif now not knocking Rover, having had a few and still have the MG TF on our driveway
 
It is all R,,,,,,, over.

Then again what did you expect with a viking ship on the company logo, those guys was only on a winning streak for a short time, and after that its just sadness really.
 
I'm getting us to the features this HU has, as there's no way of knowing how things work before you buy these Chinese head units,

one disadvantage I've found out is that it will play music in the back ground as you have the sat nav on the screen but would you believe it, there is no way to skip to the next song on the SD card unless you come out of the sat nav and go in to the SD card music player

what they have done is if you have the radio in the background and the sat-nav running on the screen there is a button that lets you move up one radio station on the radio, if you have the sat nav on,

one would of thought if you had the radio on in the background you wouldn't know what the next station on the radio was , so wouldn't need that button for moving up the next station on the radio but would of been very handy for moving up/skipping to the next song on the SD card.

3 questions, yes, I've emailed the Chinese ebay seller (who has a warehouse here in the UK, to return the item to if needed) with these questions, I'm still writing to them with questions but the answers aren’t full explanation, the manual that came with it is to the point but vague in detail, it hasn't even an image of the head unit to explain what the buttons do, not that there are that many on it

1,
I was told by the seller, after he contacted the factory that I have to come out of the sat nav and in to the SD car player to skip a song, so I was wondering, could this button made to move up the radio station, with software be made to work for the SD card m
MP3’s (go to next song on the SD card) as opposed to the radio?

2,
the other question is I've tried to put a custom start up screen for the igo that came pre installed on the head unit (not on an SD card), I've found the folder they are in and I've mad a custom one with the right res and saved as a “loading.BMP” file, but unlike when I had IGO primo on the old WINCE head unit, this version has the loading screen files in a folder thats then saved as a zip file, any tips on what I might be doing wrong here? as I'm using a Mac I went on an online site to zip my folder with the files files

3,
I'd like to have a custom bootanimation, I've read up lots on it in the past week or so from the net but still can not get it to work,, yes I've had the movie cut up in to images (70) numbered 00001.jpg to 00070.jpg (then saved using the PNG file format) the desc.text file contains this script

1024 600 10

p 1 0 part0
p 0 0 part1


with a carriage return after the second folder (p 0 0 part1 ) but still won’t work/load up

I wasn't keen on the MP3's SD card read App, it looked very drab so I downloaded one from the Google play store, I'll have to take some images of it and post it here, its very retro, and I love it

also any help with this will be most welcome
 
Use WinRAR to replace the Loading file .. ( No need to unzip )
I think I did a tutorial , posted on youtube ....



Video is for a loading bar but the principle of updating files remains the same
 
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I’ve took a short movie clip of the app I’m using to play my MP3’s of my SD card, the fist one you see is the box standard one that came with the head unit, no frills bear bone app that does what’s needed and the appearance and style of it would of been great in 1980 but not in 2017.

in google play I came across this app “Casse-o-player” doesn’t make the sound come out any better but I like the retro look of it


@old4570

thank you for the link to your tutorial, I’ll have a sit down this evening and see if this will do the trick for me :)
 
as I want to use a custom bootanimation on my new Android head unit, for the past few days/weeks I’ve been googling the proceeder how to achieve this,

I get the impression the head unit needs rooting, as when I try to place my bootanimaton.zip file in the system> media folder I get an error message,

after every attempt at rooting and restarting/booting the head unit, when I go to copy / move my custom bootanimation.zip file in to system> media folder, I get a pop up window with a progress bar,

above this progress bar is a message “copy task failed” and below the progress bar I get another error message:

system/media/bootanimation.zip open failed, ERROR (Read only file system)

no way will it let me place a file in this folder

I’ve had the movie converted in to a set of png images, a seven second movie clip turned in to 71 images all sized up to my screen resolution of 1024 x 600 and re-numbered form “00001.png” to “00071.png”

in the bootanimation.zip file contains a folder named “part0” with all the images and a “desc.txt” file, containing these lines of text:

1024 600 10

p 0 0 part0

and a line return under the “p 0 0 part0” text

I’ve made a few of these png imaged all to a different resolutions (with a corresponding desc.txt file) but still no luck

now on Android mobile phones running one of these one touch app’s its a matter of seconds and you have the OS (in iPhone terms) jail broken “rooted”

I’ve not been so lucky, I must of used no end of app’s that are one touch with no need of using a PC but still no pleasure (I’m using a Mac)

I’ve googled and googles but still can’t get my Allwinner T3 P2 head unit with Android 5.1 rooted, on the box the head unit came in, the head unit is called RM-CT0008

In this time I must have used at one point or another most of the root apps Goggle has thrown at me

the ones I can still remember using are

KingoRoot
Iroot
Framaroot
OneClickRoot
Poot-debug
toweIroot
Baidu easy Root
Root-master
KingRoot

(and maybe one or two I’ve forgotten)

to check to see if I’m rooted I’ve used
Root Check
Root Checker Basic
Root Browser
SU Root Checker
Superuser

All say I’m not rooted, but two. Root Checker and Androidics say’s I am rooted

I’ve tried to use apps that need the head unit to be rooted to use and they don’t work (as expected)

In the settings I have “Stay awake” checked and also “USB debuting” checked

I’d like to get my head unit rooted so I can have the “bootanimation.zip” file changed to one of my own “bootanimation.zip” file, and not to be doing any deep changers to the OS

As I mentioned, I’ve been doing a lot of googling in these past couple of weeks but still no luck.

further information if it will be of help

System
Device Model: T3
Manufacturer: Allwinners
OS version: 5.1 (but names it as kitkat, not lollypop)
Kernel: Linux 3.10.65
Runtime: Dalvik 1.6.0
Toolchain: GCC 4.6.3
Chipset: SUN8i11P1
RAM: 1GB
Board: Exdroid
SDK Version: 19

CPU
Chipset: ARAM SUN8i11P1
Processor: Rev 5 (v7I)
Processor Design: Cortex A7
Processor Architecture: ARM7L
CPU Cores: 4X 1200MHz
Frequency Range: 480 - 1200MHz

CPU ABI: ARMEABI-V7A
CPUAB12: ARMEABI
CPU Revision: r0p5
CPU Implementation: 0x41
other CPU Features: swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tis vfpv4 idivt vfpd32

in passing, I’ve also tried to install some “live wallpaper” also with no luck, would this be due to not being rooted? also getting a custom boot screen on Igo Primo is a lot harder than when I did it on WINCE head unit, would be very great full for any help here too

as always, any help would be greatly appreciated

@old4570

I couldn't get a version of WinRAR for the Mac, I could find other substitutes, and saved files as store, (not using compression) but not much luck, I can get access to a Chrome book, would there be a version of WinRAR for Google's Chrome OS and would it act like it would the Windows version?
 
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