My Comprehensive List of VIRB Elite/VIRB Edit Issues

Although I've thought about returning this camera, I'm hopeful Garmin will eventually fix everything so it will be as awesome as I was expecting it to be. I do have a full year to return it to REI for any reason and I'm saving all my packaging, but hopefully, it won't come to that, however, if they come out with an Air Ion Pro with GPS and overlays, I'll seriously consider going back to that camera as it was my favorite of all my cameras.

But anyway - here's a comprehensive list of issues I have with my VIRB Elite:

1. VIRB Locks up since version 2.80 (must pull battery to reset).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzSD5nmLkwk
*** VERY SERIOUS ISSUE FOR ME ***

3. VIRB won't pair with my speed and cadence sensor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggf2AkUftnE
QUITE DISAPPOINTING.

4. Elevation Way Off - many times at least 500' off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P1N9390LfY
ANNOYING.

5. VIRB overlays are very limited.
Dashware let's you do individual items.
Need to be able to select individual guages.
Same video but futher into it: http://youtu.be/6P1N9390LfY?t=6m19s

6. Gradient overlay alternates between grade and "--" constantly.

7. When playing VIRB Movies on my big screen TV using my Apple TV,
data is too close to edge of screen.
Need ability to place guages further in from edge of video.
Would be nice if we could resize them too, they're a bit too small.

8. Clip numbering restarts at 001, and you end up with multiples.
Confusing.
Same video, further in: http://youtu.be/6P1N9390LfY?t=7m45s

9. Deleting clips in VIRB EDIT is exceedingly tedious:
Same video, further in: http://youtu.be/6P1N9390LfY?t=8m59s
Need Edit -> Select All -> Delete.

10. Deleting clips leaves FIT files on your memory card.
Must clean up manually.

11. Operating the Device Using Your Mobile Device
From the manual:
This feature is available for VIRB Elite only.
You can remotely view and control photo and video recording
using a compatible mobile device running the free
Garmin VIRB app.

And.. the App doesn't exist yet for the iPhone.
Not sure about other platforms.

I think that's about it. This will be awesome when all of this is working, but right now, it's pretty disappointing.

Oh - here are some problems "went away":

1. Connect to PC Issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SULxuuZ_EUs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf2ZN3AkjXE
Supposedly fixed now, but I can't check, I sold the memory card.

2. Memory Card Abort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQwuhsryu18
Again, I can't check, sold the memory card.

3. Audio was very muffled but I figured out why and how to make it better (from my perspective):
http://youtu.be/SULxuuZ_EUs?t=1m8s

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

I found it annoying that I was able to inadvertently close VirbEdit in the middle of importing clips. No, "Are You Sure?" dialog. I was halfway through importing some large files and when I accidentally clicked on the wrong close-window-button. It's just a do-over. Grr.

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

When I import a video into VirbEdit, there is a designated folder where the video files get copied to. It is not clear to me where the .gpx files go during this process. Before doing an import, I copied the movie files to a directory on my C: drive. After the import, the program asked if I wanted to clean the files off of the device. I said "Yes" and now I can't find the GPX data that corresponds with the video files.

I find it really challenging to associate the correct video file with the correct GPX files. If there was some commonality between the names of the files, it would help a lot. It seems like all I have to go on today is the sequential orders of the two sets of files when they are sorted in date order

0 schinder over 11 years ago

You're in the wrong section, since no one using Mac OS X has a "C:" drive unless they choose the name as a joke. On a Mac, the GPX files wind up in ~/Library/Application Support/Garmin/VIRB Edit. There must be a similar place on Windows. It's not where the .mp4's are kept (which on a Mac, are in ~/Movies/Garmin).

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

VirbEdit seems to be designed under the assumption that it will be the only video editor I will ever need. I can accept that I will use VirbEdit for parts of my video production but its functionality is so limited that it makes even free editors like Windows Movie Maker look powerful. Using VirbEdit, it seems like I can't do voice overs, cross fades, B&W, adjust brightness, captions, titles, the list goes on and on... When playing my movie in VirbEdit, I can see a map window but I can't incorporate the map in a picture-in-picture window in my exported video. Such a tease! So, it seems that I'm going to use multiple video editors: a) VirbEdit to do data overlays on selected clips and b) something else to assemble those clips with non-overlay clips, stills, titles, split screen, PIP, cross fades, etc. Given that I'm going to use VirbEdit for only very special effects (ie. overlaying GPS data) it makes no sense to me to allow VirbEdit to manage how I migrate the files from the device to my computer's hard drive. This was already referenced above in the context of that target directory VirbEdit is configured to use getting multiple files with the same name. I also allude to this in my earlier comment about "Where did the GPX files get moved to during import?" I don't really understand the purpose of importing the files into VirbEdit. Why can't I just drag video file directly to the storyline? I assume it has something to do with associating it with the gps data. But couldn't I just drag the GPX file to a parallel channel of the story line similar to the way I can synch music and captions with the video in other editors?

Basically, I would like to understand the use-case. How does Garmin think I am going to manage the files captured by the device? Pile them all in a common directory where the quantity and lack of organization will ultimately become overwhelming? I want to organize my files according to my own data storage and organization practices. I don't want a piece of software to act like it knows how to organize my files better than I do.

I am a professional software test engineer and I am assuming that Garmin contracted out the development of VirbEdit and had a difficult time spec-ing it. The developers did the best they could to fulfill their contract but didn't really address the end users' challenges. The good news is that the device seems to work well enough collecting video and gps data. The problem is with the software that allows me to control the presentation of that data. I believe that the VirbEdit software can be improved without requiring me to buy a new device.

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

It seems that this thread is crossing over between PC and Mac as mentioned in someone else's earlier post. There doesn't seem to be a good place to make these comments on the PC side of this forum. Sorry.

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

KNEELT: The intended workflow for experienced video editors that want to use a different editing application: use VIRB Edit to add gauges to videos and then export and use that exported video in your video editing tool of choice.

If the user wants to edit the video *before* adding the GPS data overlay to it, that can work too, but the track matching stuff becomes more manual then since it's no longer paired with the device track automatically. At that point I recommend using the "Add GPS > Clip Library" option, which will allow you to use the track from the original recording. Then you'll need to "Adjust..." the track to realign it with your edited clip. Naturally, modifying any time data in your video wouldn't be recommended in that case.

In either of these cases, the user's clip library and VIRB Edit itself are essentially becoming a video factory for another editing suite and the data VIRB Edit's storing would ideally be more volatile than in the standard use case. We're looking to improve management of clips in the future, especially with regards to being able to delete many of them at a time. VIRB Edit's main assumed user would still be someone that's not planning to use another editing application, but that would at least make it better at staying out of the way of more advanced users.

0 SteveC over 11 years ago

A feature request to consider for clip management ...

In the older iMovie there was an excellent feature called 'Delete Unused' which does not appear to be in the current version as far as I can see. The workflow goes like this:

(1) Import Videos from Camera (Mahusive Files)
(2) Start a project and add videos to timeline and trim all the rubbish out - 2 hours windsurfing/biking down to the interesting 60 secs of clips.
(3) Export the mp4 video (file and Youtube)
(4) Now you are still left with the project and all the Mahusive camera files that fed that project. You could delete the project and all the original camera files to recover all that space, but you might want to hold onto some of those clips you cut out or maybe export again with different music or overlay. So a Project 'Delete Unused' function would be most excellent which would go through all the original camera videos that made up the project and trim out the used clips and delete the rest while still maintaining the project. Now you still have your project and are only using a fraction of the disk space.

0 Dieselchris1505 over 11 years ago

I am having trouble getting the GPS and FIT data to show up on the virbedit so I can overlay it on the video, I have taken 4 different bicycle race videos and non have the option when I go to edit the video, I confirmed all sensors are paired and the GPS on while recording option is on. I have also found that uploading the FIT file to Garmin Connect does not happen, it stays stuck in reading the activities and it never uploads, I am this close to retuning this device, is not doing what I want… Race videos with my sensors overlaid and map. Any help around this please

0 SteveC over 11 years ago

Virb seems to be a second class citizen when it comes to Garmin Connect:

Garmin Connect Web upload on MAC does not work for VIRB.
Garmin Express does not work for VIRB.

0 Dieselchris1505 over 11 years ago

Virb seems to be a second class citizen when it comes to Garmin Connect:

Garmin Connect Web upload on MAC does not work for VIRB.
Garmin Express does not work for VIRB.

No wonder, I have a Mac and thats why is not uploading? neither to the the Garmin VIRB Edit program?? I can only xfer the video portion but the GPS and sensor data have yet to see it.