Honda CR-Z Navigation Splash Screen Replacement

The navigation display renders at 480 x 234 pixels, so build your background at exactly that resolution. The system is extremely sensitive to the file's color space, and in practice only Adobe Photoshop (CS3 or newer) reliably preserves it. Instead of building a bitmap from scratch, open the original OpeningBase.bmp that you pulled from the DVD, paste your finished design on top of it, flatten the layers, and use Save. Never use Save As, which silently converts the file to 24-bit or 32-bit and breaks it. A correct OpeningBase.bmp lands at roughly 220 KB; if yours is a very different size, your editor has changed the profile and the nav will reject it. Note that Windows may report the bit depth as 16 while Photoshop shows RGB/8 for the same file, so rely on the original's inherited profile rather than manually setting a depth. The two remaining graphics (Honda_emblem.bmp and Navi_Title.bmp) sit on top of the background, so reduce each to a single black or color-matched pixel to keep them from covering your image.

Insert your original navigation DVD and drag its entire contents into a new desktop folder named navi_files. Within that copy, locate the packed binary called 10AVN2.bin; this is the container that holds the splash graphics. The exact filename can differ between navigation versions. On the 2014 update disc, for example, the background bitmap inside the binary is named Opening1.bmp rather than OpeningBase.bmp, and the separate emblem and title files are absent. Keep this untouched copy of the disc contents so you always have a clean fallback.

Download the bysin utility and extract bysin.exe together with CECompressv4.dll using 7-Zip or any free archive extractor. Create a working folder directly at the root of your C: drive named navi, so its path is c:\navi. Into that single folder place all of the following: bysin.exe, CECompressv4.dll, your working copy of 10AVN2.bin, and your three prepared images (Honda_emblem.bmp, Navi_Title.bmp, and OpeningBase.bmp).

Open a Command Prompt (search cmd from the Start menu) and switch into the working folder with cd \navi. You run the same tool three separate times, once per graphic, letting each pass finish and hand you back the prompt before you start the next. Every line begins with `bysin`, then names the container `10AVN2.bin`, then adds the keyword `update`, and finishes by giving the target image's filename twice over -- first as the entry being overwritten, second as your edited replacement on disk. Feed it `Honda_emblem.bmp` in both slots; repeat the whole thing with `Navi_Title.bmp` in both slots; run it once more with `OpeningBase.bmp` in both slots. Each pass overwrites only that single graphic inside the `10AVN2.bin` container using your version; after the third one returns, close the window.

Copy the freshly patched 10AVN2.bin out of c:\navi and use it to overwrite the old copy inside the navi_files folder on your desktop. Then burn the complete contents of navi_files to a blank double-layer disc. Two format details are critical: the media must be double-layer (DVD+R DL, about 8.5 GB; Verbatim discs are confirmed to work, while rewritable RW media tends to throw read errors), and the disc must be written in mastered or closed-session mode so it is readable in a device other than the PC that authored it. The built-in Windows disc burner is adequate for this job.

In the car, power up the navigation system (the engine need not be running) and swap your burned disc in for the factory DVD; expect an access error at this point. Bring up the hidden service menu by pressing and holding the map, menu, and cancel buttons together until a diagnostic screen appears. Choose the bottom entry to open the diagnostic list, select "version," then select "download." The disc will spin up and load, warning you not to switch off the car while it works.

After the transfer runs for a while, the unit will report that the loaded disc is not the genuine navigation DVD. When that message appears, remove your burned copy, reinsert the factory disc, and let it load normally. The head unit stores your custom splash in its own memory, so this flash is a one-time operation; from then on you drive with the original DVD in place and your image survives every power cycle.