ebay Navigation Software and Charts. Bargain?

It looks very similar to MemoryMap's offering. 800+ UK charts complete with chart plotting software. I agree with their sales blurb that SeaClear is a better bit of software though (AIS support for one thing).

The downside for me is the need to run it from the CD. My netbook doesn't have a built-in CD reader and I would have to plug in an usb reader. Okay, I could use a laptop with a bigger screen, but it consumes a lot more amps than my wee Samsung N110.
 
Ubergeekian said:
Anyone know how difficult it is to bust that sort of protection? I've done some experiments with mounting iso dumps of protected DVDs without success ... yet ...
Click to expand...

Very. In this case they also mention encryption. Trouble is we're not just talking about images of charts; there's all the georeferencing as well.

It's much easier to extract the necessary from MemoryMap's charts ;)
 
Porthandbuoy said:
It looks very similar to MemoryMap's offering. 800+ UK charts complete with chart plotting software. I agree with their sales blurb that SeaClear is a better bit of software though (AIS support for one thing).

The downside for me is the need to run it from the CD. My netbook doesn't have a built-in CD reader and I would have to plug in an usb reader. Okay, I could use a laptop with a bigger screen, but it consumes a lot more amps than my wee Samsung N110.
Click to expand...

They do a USB dongle for their visicharts, so may do one for this system. They are easy to contact.
 
Ubergeekian said:
Anyone know how difficult it is to bust that sort of protection? I've done some experiments with mounting iso dumps of protected DVDs without success ... yet ...
Click to expand...

Alcohol 120% has been able to copy an image to disk and run as a virtual drive almost every CD or DVD I have bought over many years. You need to search with web to find the protection system used and then select that in the Alcohol menu.

Burning a copy of a protected CD or DVD can be a lot more problematic but as long as you have enough space on your hard disc there's no problem.

You can download a trial version and see if it does the job!

Richard
 
I'd be really interested in buying a copy - but only if I could run the charts from either a hard drive or memory stick.

I imagine that the DVD has been encrypted using CSS (Content Scrambling System), and there's some chat about that at:
http://www.burnworld.com/software/dvdburning/dvdrippers.htm

It may be possible to overcome it, and then run the charts as a virtual DVD. That's if anyone is up to the task of course - sadly I'm not.
 
Porthandbuoy said:
Very. In this case they also mention encryption. Trouble is we're not just talking about images of charts; there's all the georeferencing as well.
Click to expand...

So how does their software know that it's looking at an original DVD and not at an image of that DVD on my HD? Do DVDs have serial numbers? I presume that a bit-for-bit identical copy should work fine, so which bits get hidden from the copying process?
 
electrosys said:
I'd be really interested in buying a copy - but only if I could run the charts from either a hard drive or memory stick.

I imagine that the DVD has been encrypted using CSS (Content Scrambling System), and there's some chat about that at:
http://www.burnworld.com/software/dvdburning/dvdrippers.htm

It may be possible to overcome it, and then run the charts as a virtual DVD. That's if anyone is up to the task of course - sadly I'm not.
Click to expand...

On their website they say they are doing the package on a USB stick from June 20th :)
 
Ubergeekian said:
So how does their software know that it's looking at an original DVD and not at an image of that DVD on my HD? Do DVDs have serial numbers? I presume that a bit-for-bit identical copy should work fine, so which bits get hidden from the copying process?
Click to expand...
Apparently there is a section of a pressed-DVD where special code can be stored - serial numbers, region codes, CSS random codes etc - which can then be read by software which is looking specifically for this stuff (similar to serial number stuff held on a HDD). This info isn't normally accessible to an operating system's file system, so isn't normally copied into an .iso image. However, there are programs which access this 'reserved space' and somehow (don't ask me how - I'm getting a headache already) either circumvent this info or (presumably) bring it into a more visible area of the disk.

I'm told DVD-decrypter is one which - because it was so clever - was made illegal by the Americans, but apparently there are others around.
There's a Wiki about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Decrypter

As to whether it would do what we want - dunno. I wonder how the USB stick (sounds more useful) will be protected ? Do USB's also have protected areas ? Well over my head.



Just checked - the USB version is not a simple memory stick, but is a kosher 'dongle' - i.e. it has a hardware encryption chip inserted between the USB memory and it's connection with the outside world.
 
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I have been a Seaclear user for years. Probably 10 years on my fishing vessel and sold this last year with the computer and digital charts loaded.
Now I'm upgrading the laptop on my yacht and intend selling off the old one on eBay with Seaclear and admiralty digital charts loaded. Is this really legal? On this forum the subject of copyright regularly comes up but what happens in this case and the many others in a similar boat?
 
I emailed the seller last night and got a reply that the DVD wouldn't run under Windows 98.
That strongly suggests that the DVD doesn't just contain SeaClear and charts, but also an intermediate program (which only runs under XP and higher) which controls the chart encryption. Something to be aware of if you were hoping to use a virtual DVD set-up.
 
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