Garmin BirdsEye - aerial imagery subscription

[Teegate]

This is a statement on Birds Eye at the Garmin site I noticed today:

"Expiration Date
The subscription lasts 1 year from the activation date. You will need to renew subscription after 1 year. Imagery downloaded to your GPS device during the 1 year subscription does not expire."

Does that mean if I download the entire area in one year, it will always be on my GPS? I thought that you had to sign up each year to view it, which is why I did not like the sound of it at first. I suppose only people like surveyors, realtors, ect. need new views each year?

Bob,

I will use myself as an example. I purchased a subscription for $29 from Garmin to download all the 2007 aerials I wanted for one year to my GPS. I have a choice each time of low, high, or highest quaility. I chose highest. Here is what I have downloaded so far as of last night.

This is what I see every time I download an area.

So once the files are on my computer as long as I back them up I can use them forever. They do not expire after the year is up. I can put them in my GPS or take them out as I please and they still will work. You do all of the downloading through the Garmin BaseCamp program, and I made sure I took the files directly out of my GPS and backed them up in the event BaseCamp has a problem and the files are lost.


Here are the files I have so far. This takes forever to do if you want the highest quality like I did. If you go for lower quality you can download more of an area each time. If you want me to show how that works I will.

With all this said, I am not so sure the units you are interested in take these maps anyway. Boyd can help you with that better than I can.



Guy

 

[Teegate]

BTW Bob, your GPS most likely will only hold 1 gigs of maps, so you will need to buy a bigger SD card. I just purchased the 8 GB for less than $30 and so far with just the maps I downloaded in the photo above I have used 2.5 GB. So at high quality I will not even get the complete state of NJ on it.

More info on the BirdsEye downloading. For example, the large blue square is what I want to download. The yellow circle shows it is 4.5 gigs at the highest quality. The lower blue area shows that Garmin puts a limit of 5000 images at one time and I am trying to download 29189 which is impossible.

But if I drop it to standard quality that same area is just 59MB and less than 5000 images and I can download in one shot.

Guy

 

[bobpbx]

Thanks Guy, for the detailed explanation. I was not going to try to download to the one you are going to loan me. I was looking towards the future.

What's up with this one...the Garmin 62st..is the jury back from deliberation on this one? Is it guilty as charged?

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=63802

 

[Boyd]

Guy is right, you can keep the files forever. I am working this Thanksgiving so not much time to post - in Phoenix right now, but got out to the desert for awhile this morning. Beautiful!

Anyway, there have been a few issues reported with the 62 series but they will no doubt correct them in software as time goes by. It has the same internal guts as the Oregon however. The 62st includes full US Topo 100k maps, like the Oregon 450t. Would you want those? The 62s is the same unit but without the maps.

Personally, I think the 62 series is way over priced for what you get. The screen is not really any better than the 60csx, the Oregon has 2.5x as many pixels.

I will post this separately, but this is the best price I've ever seen on the 450 - $230. Might only be a one-day sale though: http://www.gpscity.com/garmin-oregon-450.html

 

[Boyd]

What's up with this one...the Garmin 62st..is the jury back from deliberation on this one? Is it guilty as charged?

See this:

http://forums.gpsreview.net/viewtopic.php?t=20791

I wondering if the problems that I had with a 62s, have been corrected with later revisions.
I could walk very slow, 6 in per second, and the unit wouldn't updat/refresh the L/L, or UTM, for almost 50 ft, then very slow to update to the waypoint, 3 ft every 2 min or so.
Set it on the storage unit roof and let it average for an hour, tracks set to one sec, and I got a solid rectangle, instead of scatter plot.
Tracking set to one sec, and walking very slow around a 10ft circle, at a test waypoint, the tracks looked like a half square/octagon mix. Had to walk fast to get close to a true circle.
A GPS 60, and 60CSx, do all of the above correctly, like champs.

 

[bobpbx]

Thanks Boyd, that is good info. I am taking my time, trying to absorb a little at a time. Guy made a comment during several of our treks about having to tap the screen (on the Oregon) to get back where it was while walking, because we invariably hit them on branches and brush all the time. That gave me pause. Maybe Guy has learned to just accept it, but it still gives me something to worry over.

 

[Boyd]

You can lock the screen if that's a concern. And it's really not an issue anyway. If you tap the screen, it switches from moving map to browse mode. In browse mode, you can drag the map around to look at different areas, but the screen won't scroll automatically in that mode, so the pointer can go off the screen. No harm is done though, all you need to do is tap the close button and the display returns to the moving map and will resume tracking your position. It doesn't affect anything else, such as track recording.

The same thing would happen on a button-based unit like the eTrex or 60csx if you accidently bump the cursor key. In fact, I had a lot more issues like this when using a Legend C a number of years ago. These units have a little tiny joystick on them. Pushing in on the joystick creates a waypoint. I would often find that I had accidentally created a bunch of waypoints by bumping that button.

 

[Teegate]

Walking in thick woods has inherent problems that most people may not experience. I am constantly touching the screen with my fingers just to move the GPS out of the way of a branch or tree. I have on numerous occasions changed my field settings such as the distance to go or waypoint name to something I did not even want. Locking the screen works well but on PBX hikes it can be annoying. I switch from the compass and the map a hundred times during the course of the day and I eventually just give up on locking the screen.

With this all said I still like this unit and do not regret buying it.


Guy

 

[Boyd]

Maybe some kind of case/holster would be better for you than the carabiner clip?

 

[46er]

Maybe some kind of case/holster would be better for you than the carabiner clip?

Something from Otter Box might work. It's what I carry my P&S camera in.

 

[Teegate]

On a normal outing that may work well, but on a PBX outing I carry it in my hand all the time when we are navigating through the woods. I guess that is in response to many lost GPS units by the members in the past. Fortunately, this unit is quite secure and the chances of that are slim.

Guy

 

[Boyd]

Just to bring this thread back on topic (BirdsEye)... Garmin has a one day sale tomorrow (Nov 29) for "Cyber Monday" with BirdsEye going for $25: http://www8.garmin.com/holiday/2010...um=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=

Also, when you register your GPS Garmin will send you a discount code for 10% off any products on their website. I was able to use that code to get a 10% discount on BirdsEye at the regular price, lowering it to $27. Not sure, but you might be able to get the subscription on Monday for $22.50 if this technique works.

Also note they're selling US Topo 100k on DVD for $70 in this sale.

 

[46er]

Also, when you register your GPS Garmin will send you a discount code for 10% off any products on their website.

FWIW, this 10% off is also given when registering a map product. I never registered my Topo 2008 DVD and tried it; got a confirmation email with the 10% off offer. I think I'll use it for a Birdseye subscription

 

[Boyd]

Yes, it seems to work when registering an older product. I got my 10% discount after registering my Oregon... that I'd owned for about 2 years already.

 

[Boyd]

Very interesting development here... Garmin's .jnx (BirdsEye) file format has been cracked and some tools are emerging to make you own maps. This would allow me to make much larger maps from scanned or photographic material than are now possible. The "custom map" .kmz format (that I have used) is very limited and only allows you to create a USGS topo covering about 20x20 miles or high resolution aerial photos covering 2x2 miles.

The .jnx format doesn't have these limits, so it may be possible to create maps covering the whole state. Even better, Globalmapper has said they will consider adding support for .jnx which would make it even easier for me. Stay tuned for more info.

Of course, such maps could end up being huge and I don't know if GPSFileDepot is willing to host multi-gigabyte files. You would also need to patch the firmware in your GPS, which is something Garmin would frown upon if you ever had a problem. So it's a little too soon to know where this will all lead, but I find it encouraging.

For some tech discussion, see: http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/message/view/home/30975729

 

[Teegate]

If this does work would you be able to make 1995 aerials for a much larger area?

Guy

 

[46er]

Yes, it seems to work when registering an older product. I got my 10% discount after registering my Oregon... that I'd owned for about 2 years already.

It also works if you un-register a device, then re-register it. You get another confirmation email and 10% discount. Some holes in their system, me thinks...

 

[Boyd]

Yes Guy, that's exactly what it should allow. But we'll need to see how it plays out. Since it's an unsupported hack that involves firmware modification, there could be unwanted side effects. And it could be difficult to make this kind of map unless it's supported by a program like Globalmapper.

But as I said, it looks promising.

 

[Teegate]

Thanks for the info Boyd!

Guy