Is there a future for standalone satnavs from TomTom and others, following the decision by Nokia to give away world maps and navigation free?

Says TomTom: “We remain the only company fully focused on car navigation and thus providing the best customer experience. Customers have over and over again been willing to pay for the best user experience.”

I’ll second that. I have bought several TomToms for friends and family as gifts; one of them gets used instead of the horribly user-unfriendly satnav that Toyota builds into the Prius.

At Nokia’s free maps launch event, the demos were impressive, but Nokia has again managed to snatch real-world difficulty from the jaws of simplicity.

The instructions on Nokia’s free maps website (nokia.co.uk/maps) are very unclear on the need to download Nokia PC Suite, Ovi store, Map Installer and Maps software.

Then, when I asked an N96 with built-in GPS for directions to Tottenham Court Road, it demanded £7.99 for a “full licence”. This is because only 11 handsets are compatible, and others will follow who knows when. What it needs is much clearer explanation. But for that to happen, Nokia boss Anssi Vanjoki will first have to try using Nokia’s website and instruction manuals, while pretending he is a real-world user, like me for example.

3D is not going to go away. So I have been looking at the pitfalls dealers will face while the standards mature.
The HDMI Organisation recently set a new standard Ver 1.4, which will let a new 3D Blu-ray player, game console or satellite receiver control a new 3D TV. But all existing AV receiver/amplifiers have only HDMI Ver 1.3 connectors.

So what will happen when a new Ver 1.4 3D source sends a 3D signal to a Ver 1.4 3D TV through an existing Ver 1.3 AVR?

Steve Venuti, president of the HDMI Organisation admits no one knows for sure because “a lot of issues are device-dependent”. So an HDMI engineer is now in Japan to talk with AVR manufacturers.

Sky’s 3D system works with existing Sky HD boxes because it crams the left and right images into a standard HD picture signal. This halves resolution but Mr Venuti thinks this means: “Existing (1.3) AVRs should pass the 3D signal to a 3D TV without problems. The AVR doesn’t know its a L/R 3D signal, doesn’t understand and doesn’t care. In the worst case, the TV will have to be set up manually. But we think that most (1.3) AVRs will have hardware that can be firmware-upgraded to allow automatic TV setting.”

“The Blu-ray situation is completely different. BD 3D packs two full HD frames into a single picture frame that is twice the size of an ordinary BD frame. The video and audio data stream structure will be completely different. It may be possible to upgrade some players. We understand the PS3 can be upgraded [because it will be a case of telling the cell processor what to do.] But we have no idea yet how many other BD players can be upgraded.”

“Ver 1.3 AVRs won’t be able to recognise what comes out of the 3D Blu-ray player. They won’t have seen anything like it before. They won’t understand the data structure and the way the audio and video are packaged and they won’t know what to do with it. They’ll have no clue.”

“Some AVRs may be upgradable. Some may not. It will depend on their hardware. We just don’t know yet.

“The way I read the situation, people will be able to get a 3D experience right away from legacy broadcast set-top boxes and AVRs and a new 3D TV, but if they want the Full HD 3D experience, it will be a quantum leap. They will have to upgrade their system including the AVR.”

“One work-around will be to plug the 3D player directly into the 3D TV and use the HDMI audio return path to send the audio to the AVR. But the return path is limited to SP/DIF. You’ll get Dolby Digital but not higher quality audio.

“Another way is to have two HDMI outputs on the player and feed the TV and AVR separately. But we don’t know what will happen with lip sync – or how the player and AVR and TV will exchange HDMI handshakes through two outputs. That could be an issue. We just don’t know these things yet.”

On top of all this, it’s now looking likely that the passive polarisation 3D TVs from JVC and Hyundai that work with Sky 3D won’t work with 3D Blu-ray. More on this later.

As Mr Venuti says: “It’s a new frontier and I never knew there could be so many arrows on a frontier – it’s all happening so quickly.”

Barry Fox