The navionics reply was that a corrupted card was not their problem and the normal way would be for a customer to pay full price for a replacement card (unless you cause some trouble and argue). He tried to get a replacement and managed after much argument go get the price down to £95 ($150). I got some of the details wrong – the customer bought med charts from navionics for £195 (approx $300) and the card became corrupted after less than one season. Hi the letter and corresponding reply from Navionics is in Sept 2010 Practical Boat Owner. Try to make digital charts as nice as Navionics and convince the market that your charts are one of the best. The content of the charts are being made by buying charts all over the world.
Never try to open or change the content of the chart. Sometimes 1 in a 1000, I do not know how, there is an extra file on the chart by which the content could not be opened. The owner should make a copy for a network chartplotter by copying the content on a blank CF or SD and because the original chart has the keycode, the copied chart may be opened on the network chartplotter. Navionics warns the owner that making a copy by draging the content will damage the content which can not be solved. When I get a faulty chart most of the time the owner is very carefull with his charts and because of the price of the charts the customer wants to make a backup of the content.
And, lets just forget about proprietary hardware readers – use software protection and standard SD or CF cards – I just don’t have room for this hardware clutter.ĭear Terrytt, I am working on a daily bases with the Navionics charts and loosing charts on a Navionics can be e mechanical chart problem, but most of all a mistake of the owner. I’ll buy it right now! Easy inexpensive updates make it less likely cruisers will go through the trouble to steal.
Please, Garmin, sell me a three year, g2 Vision update program for $75 a year. When you get into the range of $200 for an update too many mariners pass and Garmin never gets a penny. If updates where priced at $75 a year I would jump and I’m sure many others would as well. way out of the range of “worthwhile” for me. In fact, updating this region is 50% of the list, ($428). Two years ago I paid $400 for a large Garmin g2 Vision region. If Navionics or other chart company sold and updated this product for a fair price and used todays encryption technology it might sell to many who now reluctantly copy the old stuff.Īlso, I guess price point is important. Not a single company I’m aware of has filled the void and met their needs by offering a new single CD or DVD with world charts. I don’t agree with them, however, I can sympathize with what drives some cruisers to “share” this unprotected CD. They say the land is still in the same place regardless of other changes and that’s all they need. I am aware of many under financed, (cheap) cruisers who still use and share the ten year old C-Map CD with charts for the world. Reason two, are all the reasons mentioned above. Reason number one is I just don’t feel good about it. It keeps chart prices from going up to make up for lost revenues, the company doesn’t have to invest in more anti-piracy methods, and the company will have the money available to keep those charts up to date.įirst, let me say that I never copy or steal software or charts. The drawback to methods such as these is they also affect legitimate users like Bill mentioned, but while providing a less pleasant user experience, my personal opinion is that the less stealing of charts that goes on, the more benefit there is to the end users. No system is flawless you can make it so obnoxious to break it that people will either give up trying, or the method used to pirate the files would be so complex the average computer user wouldn’t be able to reproduce them.
I was simply stating what I said to demonstrate that systems like that still arn’t perfect, and can be compromised by people with enough free time and determination. Dave: You rightly so point out that audio and video files are easier to get away with defeating anti-piracy methods, and it’s much more difficult to circumvent more complex files.