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Garmin Birdseye not ready for primetime


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I'll agree that the downloads should go quicker. I mean when It's all said and done the maximum file size for one of these tiles is around 75mb most being less. I can download most files that are this size from everywhere else in about 1-2 minutes. It takes about 20-30 minutes with Garmin.

 

The second part that's frustrating is the time it takes to render images in Basecamp. What an absolute clunker.

 

Overall however, despite the drawbacks, I like having imagery and it looks pretty darned good on my 62s screen.

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i don't mind the slowish download speeds. grabbing the images is something you need to do ahead of time anyway, so it doesn't matter if it takes 5 minutes, 10 or 30.

 

my problems is more with the quality of the images. of course this is a local thing, but for the areas around here, they're rather low contrast and look more like grayscale than anything else on the GPS. plus some areas don't have any high-res images at all (while they do have it on google maps for example), and the images seem to be quite misaligned too. 50+ meters off is not very good.

 

but, $30 for a year isn't much, so i'm not complaining. i'm sure it will improve over time, as it's still a relatively new service.

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I have more of an issue with Basecamp, it takes forever to do anything. Just transferring birdseye images to an SD card takes forever and the rendering is horrendously slow.

 

It doesn't sound like the delorme service is much faster.

 

Tell me it aint so! I thought Delorme had a better map experience than Garmin.

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Well I glad it is not just me going crazy with BaseCamp. I decided to give it a try and BaseCamp keeps crashing or is painfully slow. I am about ready to ask for a refund if they don't fix basecamp/

 

Well, now that I understand the whole process, it seems that the rendering is what makes all of this so slow. Originally, I thought that I was just downloading pictures. Maybe their servers are rendering the images first which makes the downloads painfully slow. Then, Basecamp has to render the image when transferring to the GPS. Is my conclusion correct, or am I just making things up? In any case, I hate the whole process. They should give us a DVD with all the images so that we can bypass the download process.

 

-Not a happy camper!

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Well, now that I understand the whole process, it seems that the rendering is what makes all of this so slow. Originally, I thought that I was just downloading pictures. Maybe their servers are rendering the images first which makes the downloads painfully slow. Then, Basecamp has to render the image when transferring to the GPS. Is my conclusion correct, or am I just making things up?

i doubt that. AFAICS, the images are just regular JPG images, and they're JPG images on the garmin servers, JPG images on the PC and JPG images on the garmin. there's nothing to convert or render when downloading them or transferring them.

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About a dozen times over the past few days since I got Birds Eye, Basecamp has shut down and gave me an opportunity to send info to Garmin. Many more times it would just sit there doing nothing or say not responding. So I would use task manager to shut it down. (If you click the red box it takes for ever to shut down) Many times when I would try to open it, after the base camp screen disappeared, it would just sit there and say not responding. I would shut it down and start over-sometimes it would work and sometimes it would not. I tried reinstalling and MOST of the time it would start up after it was reinstalled. Today I let it sit when it got stuck and about 10 minutes latter it loaded. I shut it down and restarted it and it started right back up. This is extremely frustrating. I've got a fairly new computer with a quadcore processor. So I am getting really upset with Garmin. Is there anyway to take off what you have downloaded already and then reinstall it? Having Basecamp so slow and unreliable is a real pain. While I hate the program, MapSource will not download waypoints from my 550T (or the photo locations) so I need Basecamp to function properly.

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Over this last week I have downloaded a total of 1.5 Gigs of BirdsEye images. This covers a relatively small area near where I live. I was planning on having imagery from all of Southern California on my unit, but I figured out that it would be about 42 gigs of images! Then, I would have to think about how many frustrating weeks it would take me to do it.

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Over this last week I have downloaded a total of 1.5 Gigs of BirdsEye images. This covers a relatively small area near where I live. I was planning on having imagery from all of Southern California on my unit, but I figured out that it would be about 42 gigs of images! Then, I would have to think about how many frustrating weeks it would take me to do it.

can't blame that on garmin though, that's just how much data there is and with today's technology you can't make it any smaller.

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Anyone else haivng trouble with the bird's eye maps locking up your GPS? Not only has basecamp been a nightmare since I bought Bird's eye, now I am having all kinds of trouble with it locking up the GPS. It tends to get stuck on either loading photos or loading maps. I tried moving some of the maps to a different directory and sometimes that would work. I finally figured out it was not a particular map. It has been a royal pain having to take out the batteries and take out the card, put it in an adapter and then in a card reader. It will not go into USB mode either! It gets stuck in the same place. I fianlly figured out that most of the time I can get it to start up by: 1) remove card; 2) start it up. 3) Change the profile 4) put card back in and then MOST of the time it will start up.

 

This is getting to be deja va with all the BS with Garmin and the CO when it first came out. Garmin should not be releasing this stuff until it works!

 

!@#$%$

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Over this last week I have downloaded a total of 1.5 Gigs of BirdsEye images. This covers a relatively small area near where I live. I was planning on having imagery from all of Southern California on my unit, but I figured out that it would be about 42 gigs of images! Then, I would have to think about how many frustrating weeks it would take me to do it.

can't blame that on garmin though, that's just how much data there is and with today's technology you can't make it any smaller.

 

But what we CAN hold Garmin responsible for is the time it takes to download those images (which is unforgivable slow by today's standards), as well as the navigational behavior (i.e. slow to the point of absurdity). I can navigate around Google Earth, which has the same or in some places considerably better resolution images in the areas I've been looking at, and it just flies. I can navigate around and zoom in and out, and images download in a matter of seconds. Any "pauses" are negligible in length.

 

Compare this Basecamp, where a single section of BE imagery (i.e. less than 75meg) can take 20 to 30 minutes to download. Navigating around in Basecamp once a number of BE sections are imported is downright silly. It can take a couple MINUTES to start responding after simply zooming in or out, and sometimes it just quits back to the desktop. Note that this only started happening after I had downloaded a couple dozen BE sections, but these sections are on the LOCAL drive, and they just aren't that big. Google Earth navigates just fine while constantly having to download all the images from the internet. Even if you excuse Garmin for not having servers as fast as Garmin, you can't get around the fact that even after the download is finished and no longer requires the server, navigation in Basecamp is STILL ridiculously slow, and has relatively frequent crashes.

 

Add to this the fact that each BE section has to be manually drawn and created (which takes considerable time with all the long navigation pauses when simply zooming) and you have a program which just doesn't seem like it's working properly, and falls far short of today's standards for functionality. I admit that I'm thrilled to have the ability to see this imagery on my GPS, but managing the unit is clunky and extremely cumbersome on many levels, and doesn't match the quality level of of the actual GPS unit.

 

Larry

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Since I need BaseCamp to download waypoints (Mapsoure will not download them from a OR), I decided I needed to remove all the Bird's Eye from BaseCamp. So I used Back Up. It took over 2.5 hours for it to back up about 2 gigs. I could understand 10 minutes, but 2.5 hours is unreal. Anyway, after I did that I deleted the maps and I now have the crappy program it was before Bird's Eye made it unuseable.

 

Take a look at thier website and what they claim. It is false advertising. First they say:

 

Use your BirdsEye Satellite Imagery subscription with BaseCamp™ software to quickly transfer an unlimited amount of satellite images to your Garmin device and seamlessly integrate those images into your handheld’s maps whenever you need them.

 

If that is not deceptive enough, watch the video:

 

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=70144

 

I hope people start filing complaints with the BBB and Attorney Generals for this deceptive advertising for a product that does not work!

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I have more of an issue with Basecamp, it takes forever to do anything. Just transferring birdseye images to an SD card takes forever and the rendering is horrendously slow.

 

It doesn't sound like the delorme service is much faster.

 

Tell me it aint so! I thought Delorme had a better map experience than Garmin.

We (as in DeLorme users) do and its being improved on after a few speed/performance bumps. The above statement is based on old hand info. The file size is much larger (=larger area covered) although it's recommended not to go over 1.2GB for the file size. I tend to limit mine to 300-400 MB.

Edited by TotemLake
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I noticed that slow down in Basecamp too after I downloaded 32 different high quality images. So, to get basecamp to work as fast, I meant slow as it was before, I must delete the Birdseye imagery that it took me over a week to download. This IS CRAZY!

 

I won't even get started with my BaseCamp complaints:

 

1. Custom icons for my waypoints get replaced by a dot after Basecamp detects my GPS.

2. Icons that Basecamp has available won't download to GPS.

3. It is SLOW no matter what map you have loaded

4. There's more, I just can't remember right now!

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i'm only using basecamp in a virtualbox, so performance will always suck but it's not affecting the rest of my PC. so i can't complain really.

 

i believe the downloads could be sped up quite a lot if basecamp would parallelize the downloads more. i didn't take any real close look at it, but it seems that basecamp requests the image tiles only one after another, which is quite a performance killer with that many tiles. better would be if it requested several of them at the same time, which is also what google earth/maps does. changing that would require only a relatively small and simple modification to basecamp's code, so unless their partners put any restrictions on garmin in that respect, they could easily fix basecamp up that way. fingers crossed for any future versions.

Edited by dfx
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But you can back them up. Select the libary it is in, then under file select back up. I sucessfully backed mine up (took over 2.5 hours). But I have not tried to restore them yet. I still have not been able to get my OR to boot with any birds eye maps. I sure hope I do not have to restore the maps and then resend to GPS. I will be so upset.

 

I noticed that slow down in Basecamp too after I downloaded 32 different high quality images. So, to get basecamp to work as fast, I meant slow as it was before, I must delete the Birdseye imagery that it took me over a week to download. This IS CRAZY!

 

I won't even get started with my BaseCamp complaints:

 

1. Custom icons for my waypoints get replaced by a dot after Basecamp detects my GPS.

2. Icons that Basecamp has available won't download to GPS.

3. It is SLOW no matter what map you have loaded

4. There's more, I just can't remember right now!

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@#$%^%$# Garmin!

 

As I said, I backed all my files up (which took 2.5 hours) and then deleted them. Well I just tried restore and it will not restore!!!!!!! The error message says the format of the backup file is not valid!!!!! %$#@&^%$@ Garmin!!!!!

 

That would really upset me. Where's Garmin on all of this?

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I wasted about an hour on the phone with Garmin tech support today.

 

They admitted BaseCamp can run slow with lots of Birds Eye on it. But they would not tell me when it would be fixed. They also could not help me with the back up file not being restored. He tried to explain why it was so slow. I told him they need to fix it.

 

He denied that it was a slow download or transfered to the GPS slowly.

 

But they pointed out if you have BirdsEye on your GPS you can transfer it from the GPS into BaseCamp. So there is a way to get it back into BaseCamp.

 

They were useless in trying to fix the problem of my GPS not booting up with BirdsEye loaded. He said I could send it in for an exchange. But I pointed out it is a software problem.

 

At one point he told me there was a limit on how many birdseye files you can load on your GPS. I pointed out thier website clearly states there is no limit. So he was arguing it did not mean what it says. he said:

 

Use your BirdsEye Satellite Imagery subscription with BaseCamp™ software to quickly transfer an unlimited amount of satellite images to your Garmin device and seamlessly integrate those images into your handheld’s maps whenever you need them.

 

means you can download an unlimited amount to basecamp but not your GPS. I pointed out that is not what it says and that is not true either as BaseCamp locks up when you get much data on it.

 

I asked him if rolling back my firmware to an earlier version would wipe out the map info and he said no. Does anyone know if that is true?

 

He was unable to solve any of my problems. He said he would pass on the problems and someone would call me back.

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I wasted about an hour on the phone with Garmin tech support today.

 

They admitted BaseCamp can run slow with lots of Birds Eye on it. But they would not tell me when it would be fixed. They also could not help me with the back up file not being restored. He tried to explain why it was so slow. I told him they need to fix it...

 

He denied that it was a slow download or transfered to the GPS slowly.

 

...He was unable to solve any of my problems. He said he would pass on the problems and someone would call me back.

 

I had some issues a couple of years ago with a Legend HCx and then an Oregon 200. I called Garmin and they went out of their way to solve my issues. I wonder if their software support people are part of a different group.

Edited by jeepdelfuego
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I've been finding my Colorado 400t behaves very poorly when I have BirdsEye enabled. Frequent lockups, whitescreens. The worst is that the unit will lockup and simply stop updating the screen. If I've got the unit on the map screen, I'll lose a good kilometer or so of tracklog if I'm not paying attention.

 

I have discontinued use of BirdsEye and my GPS is much better behaved now. Running 3.42 beta.

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I'm running the 3.42 beta as well but don't experience any of those problems, it runs pretty smooth with the birdseye maps. I do keep the birdseye stuff on an SD card if that makes a difference.

 

I've tried the BE imagery on three different SD cards, and running off the onboard. Buggy as all bother. Might be the amount of BE data I'm hitting the unit with at a time is my current theory.

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How much BE data are you using?

 

 

I have 9GB of it on my memory card, covering most of South/Central Ontario. On the internal memory I'm running 2.5 GB of BE data.

 

I'll notice things like a crash and when I reboot the BirdsEye map name won't be BirdsEye: Toronto, Ottawa, Arnprior but instead it'll be "BirdsEye ?..????S.?S.A?22321??.???!". A reboot and it's back to normal. SD card or internal. Also observed on several other Colorado 400/BirdsEye users I know.

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I'll notice things like a crash and when I reboot the BirdsEye map name won't be BirdsEye: Toronto, Ottawa, Arnprior but instead it'll be "BirdsEye ?..????S.?S.A?22321??.???!". A reboot and it's back to normal. SD card or internal. Also observed on several other Colorado 400/BirdsEye users I know.

could that be related to the colon being an invalid character in filenames on a FAT filesystem?

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I'll notice things like a crash and when I reboot the BirdsEye map name won't be BirdsEye: Toronto, Ottawa, Arnprior but instead it'll be "BirdsEye ?..????S.?S.A?22321??.???!". A reboot and it's back to normal. SD card or internal. Also observed on several other Colorado 400/BirdsEye users I know.

could that be related to the colon being an invalid character in filenames on a FAT filesystem?

 

Could be, but it does occur across three different SD cards, and the internal memory (the error occurred before I attempted to use internal memory at all). All the cards have been "full" formatted before putting BE images on them, and the error survived a factory reset on the Colorado. So, whatever the problem is, Basecamp is recreating it.

 

The glitch also disappears with a reboot of the Colorado.

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I've given up on Birdseye. Here are my issues with it:

  1. Basecamp is painfully slow dispplaying the imagery.
  2. Selecting the maps is a pain. It should show where the tile boundaries are so I don't have to match up the map segments.
  3. Wasted downloads since I have to select square regions.
  4. Failed downloaded tiles aren't automatically retried.
  5. Transfering to the memory card is slow (yes, you can do it directly).
  6. Colorado fails to start properly with a memory card if it has to rescan a new GPX (internal memory or extrenal).
  7. GPS won't display different resolution tiles when at a boundary.
  8. GPS locks up occasionally.

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I've given up on Birdseye. Here are my issues with it:

  1. Basecamp is painfully slow dispplaying the imagery.
  2. Selecting the maps is a pain. It should show where the tile boundaries are so I don't have to match up the map segments.
  3. Wasted downloads since I have to select square regions.
  4. Failed downloaded tiles aren't automatically retried.
  5. Transfering to the memory card is slow (yes, you can do it directly).
  6. Colorado fails to start properly with a memory card if it has to rescan a new GPX (internal memory or extrenal).
  7. GPS won't display different resolution tiles when at a boundary.
  8. GPS locks up occasionally.

 

I am just about in the same boat. But, the maps work good on my Oregon. The bad part is that Basecamp works soo slow when trying to download the maps. Basecamp virtually stops working when it does anything with the BirdsEye imagery. It brings my computer to a crawl and I have a lot of memory installed. Garmin REALLY NEEDS TO FIX BIRDSEYE! If it wasn't for the touchscreen Oregon, I would jump ship to one of the Delorme products because of all the maps they have available to their customers.

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I have not had any weird file names when it will not boot. But tech support asked me about the file names. They told me it was my card, so I exchanged it and now I am having the same problem (will not boot with BE loaded). I've been trying to load about 3 gigs. It was working fine on my new card. I had it all loaded and it booted several times. Then (without changing anything) it would not boot with any BE loaded. I am waiting to hear back from Tech support.

 

They will not tell me anything about when the problems with basecamp will be fixed.

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They will not tell me anything about when the problems with basecamp will be fixed.

 

I'm simply at a loss as to what is taking them so long to address the outrageously obvious performance problems. Google Earth proves that it is not an issue with RAM or with computer speed (i.e. Google Earth displays essentially the same data and works VERY smoothly even on older systems), so what is it that Basecamp is doing that makes it grind to a halt with only a few gigs of satellite images? How can Google Earth allow me to zoom in and out all over the PLANET without any slowdowns, while BC chokes with just a small portion of the Los Angeles area downloaded? It feels like BC is completely mis-managing the RAM -- as if it constantly tries to load ALL Birdseye imagery into RAM, and leaves itself no memory to actually run the program with.

 

Does anyone at Garmin actually try to USE Basecamp with more than a few Birdseye images? How can they not have seen and fixed this by now?

 

Larry

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Dear Jim Bensman,

We are unable to get any of the units in office to show this behavior. For the meantime I would only run four files on the micro SD card until we hear back from our engineers. At that time we can suggest a solution to the issue you are dealing with.

 

With Best Regards,

Steven B

Product Support Specialist

Outdoor/Fitness Team

Garmin International

913-397-8200

800-800-1020

913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Steven B, Associate #6998

www.garmin.com

 

 

Original Message Follows: ------------------------

 

I’ve been running the latest firmware.

 

It varies on what I can have loaded.

 

The latest problem: It worked fine when I turned on the GPS with all my birds eye loaded for several times turning on the GPS. Then it would not boot-everything on the card was the same as when it would boot. This is what happened before. Sometimes I could get it to boot with some of the files, or moving part in and then all of them in the birdseye directory. When it happened in the past sometime I could get it to boot up by taking out the card, starting up the GPS changing the profile, turning it off, putting the card back in. It would then start up with all the birds eye. This would only work one time per profile. After I did this for all the profiles it would not start up with any birds eye. Then tech support had me load to a different card. After I did that I could load again on my main card. Well until now.

 

Jim Bensman

"Nature Bats Last"

From: techsupp@garmin.com [mailto:techsupp@garmin.com]

Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 1:53 PM

To: Jim Bensman

Subject: RE: Birds Eye (KMM17819882I15977L0KM)

 

Dear Jim Bensman,

On the Oregon please make sure you have the newest version of software released. Go to the link below to download Webupdater and follow the steps to install to your computer. Once that is done you can reload the images again to see if there is any change.

Is the 5th image always the same region or does it matter which five you put on the card it always creates this problem? Is there anything strange happening when you are downloading to the computer and then to the device?

 

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=931

With Best Regards,

Steven B

Product Support Specialist

Outdoor/Fitness Team

Garmin International

913-397-8200

800-800-1020

913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Steven B, Associate #6998

www.garmin.com

 

 

Original Message Follows: ------------------------

 

They are named STL 1. STL 2, etc.

 

I got everything on the card loading it on another card via a card reader and transferring it to the card in my GPS.

 

It worked great for a while. Now my GPS will not boot with Birds eye loaded. Just as before it will lock up on loading photos or loading maps.

 

Jim Bensman

"Nature Bats Last"

From: techsupp@garmin.com [mailto:techsupp@garmin.com]

Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 7:37 AM

To: Jim Bensman

Subject: RE: Birds Eye (KMM17813275I15977L0KM)

 

Dear Jim Bensman,

What are the names of the Birdseye imagery you are saving to the card? Take a screen shot using the print screen option on your computer and attach them to your reply. There has to be something happening to the files when first loaded that is being corrected when transferred again.

 

With Best Regards,

Steven B

Product Support Specialist

Outdoor/Fitness Team

Garmin International

913-397-8200

800-800-1020

913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Steven B, Associate #6998

www.garmin.com

 

 

Original Message Follows: ------------------------

 

 

I have an 8 gig card but less than 4 gigs of maps. I exchanged the card today and redownloaded city navigator and all my other maps. I also copied the birds eye data to the card. I then tried to download more and it would not work. (The same thing that happened before.) However, I can download to a 512 meg card and then transfer the maps to my 8 gig card and it works.

 

When is Basecamp going to be fixed?

 

Jim Bensman

"Nature Bats Last"

From: techsupp@garmin.com [mailto:techsupp@garmin.com]

Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 9:06 AM

To: Jim Bensman

Subject: RE: Birds Eye (KMM17797218I15977L0KM)

 

Dear Jim Bensman,

If the images will be read from the internally memory but it has issues using the card. Then perhaps the unit has a bad card reader or the card is not working as designed. This is what I can gather from your reply that you sent into us. What size micro SD card are you using in the unit? We have loaded over 2GB of data to a Oregon 550T in our office and it did boot up and show the information correctly. If the problem continue it would be best to speak with you over the phone instead of back in forth email. Please send me a telephone number and time you can be contacted at to discuss the issue if you want.

 

 

With Best Regards,

Steven B

Product Support Specialist

Outdoor/Fitness Team

Garmin International

913-397-8200

800-800-1020

913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Steven B, Associate #6998

www.garmin.com

 

 

Original Message Follows: ------------------------

 

 

That is not the issue.

 

The biggest problem is BaseCamp does not work (i.e., it takes 10 minutes to open or when you click on something) when there is more than a gig of Birds Eye on the computer. I know others are having this problem too. When is BaseCamp going to be fixed? If GoogleEarth can handle large amounts of imigary, why cannot BaseCamp?

 

I have a 550T and MapSource will not download waypoints from it (when is that going to be fixed?), so I have to use BaseCamp to download waypoints. Since it would not work with all those files on it, I used back up (which TOOK 2.5 HOURS!!!!) and then deleted the files from BaseCamp so I could use basecamp to download waypoints. After I deleted the files it took me a couple of days to download, I tried the restore. It said it could not restore because the format was invalid. But tech support let me know I could transfer the files back from my card. So while Garmin need to also fix this in BaseCamp (it is by far the worst program I have ever used), I do not need you to address that. I deleted the useless 2 gig backup file.

 

What I need you to fix is problems with my GPS. At first everything worked good. Once I got about 2 gigs on my card, my 550t would not boot with the birdseye loaded. It would get stuck on either loading photos or loading maps. If I took out the card, it would work. If I removed the card and moved the birds eye to another directory it would work. Then every once in a while it would boot with birdseye. Sometimes I could get it to load with just some of it loaded. A few times I could get everything to load if I took out the card and when I started it up, I would switch to another profile and put the card back in. It seems like this worked once for each profile. Then no matter what I did it would not boot with any birdseye loaded. I have tried a master reset. I have scaned the card and GPS for errors and there are none.

 

However, I finally was able to get it to boot up with everything but my 40 files for the St Lois Area. If moved any (but one) back to the birds eye directory, it would not boot up. So I deleted all my STL files and started redoing the STL area. Everything worked great until the 18th file. I have downloaded 38 files into BaseCamp (and it is operating extremely slow-almost useless). Now it will not send any file to my card! Nothing happens no matter how long I wait. I check the card and the file has not been downloaded. If I click on the Removable media in BaseCamp, it shows the last section I tried to download being on the card when in reality it is not on the card and all the sections on my card do not show that they are there. So how do I get BaseCamp to send the files to my GPS?

 

I am getting very upset with Garmin over this. I have wasted about 30 hours already due to crappy software.

 

Jim Bensman

"Nature Bats Last"

From: TechSupp [mailto:techsupp@garmin.com]

Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 11:33 AM

To: junkmailno@charter.net

Subject: RE: Birds Eye

 

Jim,

 

How big are the sections you are loading from birdseye. You are limited to 20,000 image tiles per download. You are not limited on how many downloads you pull off. If you want to download 15 maps of 20,000 images a piece you will be able to do this. I only recommend using a 4GB microsd card and not exceeding that size for all of the downloads. You will be able to switch out the cards if needed if you have multiple cards.

 

Stephen H

Advanced Outdoor/Fitness Specialist- Helpdesk

Garmin International

1200 E 151 St.

Olathe, KS 66062

1-800-800-1020

www.garmin.com

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Dear Jim Bensman,

We are unable to get any of the units in office to show this behavior. For the meantime I would only run four files on the micro SD card until we hear back from our engineers...

 

This really makes Garmin look bad. Four tiles? Their advertisement says download unlimited amount of imagery. I think I am going to ask for my money back. I've spent at least 30 hours messing with BirdsEye. Again, I'll admit, it looks good on my GPS. Getting it there is an obnoxious experience. Using Basecamp is ridiculous. Basecamp takes at least 10 minutes to start up now and everytime I click on something it seems to hang for another 10 minutes.

 

This leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Edited by jeepdelfuego
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Good old Garmin ,always trying to make a buck off stuff that don't work right.Too many people grab onto Garmins stuff as soon as its available,thats why it never works right to start with.The sooner Garmin gets it out the door the more money they make.Maybe they will fix it later ,or maybe its only step stone to another version of something.

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Good old Garmin ,always trying to make a buck off stuff that don't work right.Too many people grab onto Garmins stuff as soon as its available,thats why it never works right to start with.The sooner Garmin gets it out the door the more money they make.Maybe they will fix it later ,or maybe its only step stone to another version of something.

 

I love my Garmin Oregon 450, but BirdsEye keeps disappointing. One of my friends just moved to Deutshland and I wanted to check out the Satellite image of her place, so I downloaded a small image to check it out and the resolution was awful!

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I love my Garmin Oregon 450, but BirdsEye keeps disappointing. One of my friends just moved to Deutshland and I wanted to check out the Satellite image of her place, so I downloaded a small image to check it out and the resolution was awful!

... while other areas in germany have quite excellent sub-meter resolution. quite naturally, YMMV.

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Up to now I've only grabbed small areas here and there. Tonight I've queued up 40 tiles, each one at 95MB (111 sq miles) - for a total of 4,400 sq miles. It will be interesting to see what happens...

 

So far 2 tiles have downloaded and the download rate is very erratic - first tile took 10 minutes, second tile took 55 minutes. Each tile was sized to 95 MB, first tiles data files add up to about 40MB, second tile 65 MB. It seems it might be processing the data as it downloads?

 

I created an automation utility to tile an area and initiate each of the downloads, it works pretty good but needs some more testing and cleanup - you can see a (bad) video of it in action:

 

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Up to now I've only grabbed small areas here and there. Tonight I've queued up 40 tiles, each one at 95MB (111 sq miles) - for a total of 4,400 sq miles. It will be interesting to see what happens...

 

So far 2 tiles have downloaded and the download rate is very erratic - first tile took 10 minutes, second tile took 55 minutes. Each tile was sized to 95 MB, first tiles data files add up to about 40MB, second tile 65 MB. It seems it might be processing the data as it downloads?

 

I created an automation utility to tile an area and initiate each of the downloads, it works pretty good but needs some more testing and cleanup - you can see a (bad) video of it in action:

 

 

You're able to queue up 95MB for a single tile? If I try to go over 75MB it tells me the area is too big.

 

Larry

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