BETA error: Distance / Map Overlay

Hi

Please can we have some more background info for the following features.

>> Added gauges for distance and elapsed time (counted across clip boundaries).
>> Added a tab to pick starting position of track for calculating distance and other stats.

For a particular camera workflow while windsurfing, I had the camera switched on for 2 hours which means a single FIT file is recorded. During that 2 hours I switched record on / off a number of times to record a number of videos (along with their respective GPX file). The reason I selectively record video rather than leave recording for the full 2 hours is because I am cutting out the bits where I am back on the beach having a rest / chat, this means far less video to trawl through later at edit stage. Having the single FIT file is useful though for the whole duration because that shows how long I was at the beach (freezing my nuts off) etc.

Anyway, to the point ...

When I started adding the video clips to VIRB Edit I thought it initially picked up the map track for the whole session (presumably from the FIT file - rather than the individual clip GPX files - but beginning to doubt that now because can't re-create it now clips are on Macbook). Anyway, when I started trimming clips some sections of the map track turned grey - great!, but after further trims and cuts of the video I started noticing gaps in the map track (rather than grey sections) and the duration / time counters were reseting at clip boundaries.

Is this because I recorded multiple clips with time gaps between?

I understand that having VIRB Edit track the whole duration and map track is complicated stuff, especially with two sources of data (GPX and FIT), so would be interested to hear what can be done and what can't so we know what to avoid when editing.

0 SteveC over 11 years ago

Ok, playing with this scenario/workflow again, if I manually replace each clips GPS file with the overall FIT file then it all works as expected, i.e. overall Map Track with grey track where there is no video and the Duration / Elevation gauges increment correctly for whole duration even across clip boundaries - nice.

So, nice to have some guidance on when Virb Edit uses GPX (and / or) FIT files, and how it decides on linkage.

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

That linkage is figured out based on the GPX file your clips have associated with them, so no amount of trimming should affect it. If, however, you moved your movies and GPX files to another computer where your FIT files were not imported from the VIRB Elite and worked on them there, you'd need to manually import the FIT files like you described.

The guts of the matter, since you asked, are that we match any GPX file with the FIT files we've received from your VIRB Elite in the past. We import those FIT files whenever your VIRB Elite is connected and build up an index for them to make this search faster. The rub is that we don't know whether a FIT file is a VIRB Elite FIT file, and don't do this special indexing, unless we actually download it from a VIRB. We don't delete them from the device, so unless you've deleted them yourself you can still connect the device while VIRB Edit is running and let those FIT files get copied over. So long as you do that before importing movies/GPX files from your device, things should work smoothly with importing movies and GPX files on multiple devices.

The simplest solution, I think, would be to just import directly from your VIRB on all computers you want to use these movies on.

0 SteveC over 11 years ago

Thanks for the quick reply and info, sorry some more questions now!

The videos/gps etc were imported straight from the VIRB Elite using VIRB Edit on my only Mac.

Just found all the FIT files stored by VIRB Edit on the Mac as you describe and the FIT file for the the activity that covers the imported clips is indeed there.

So, just started a new Video Project and as I add clips from the already imported clip library the GPS track is only added for that section of video - are you suggesting that for each clip it should then find the FIT file and add the whole GPS track for the map - because that is not the case?

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

Your second screenshot indicates that the full FIT track is being used for one of your clips. While the "Distance/Duration" tab shows you the entire FIT track so you can set the appropriate start point, the "GPS/Video Sync" tab only shows you the exact track you in the "Add GPS..." dialog, or the .gpx file that VIRB Edit imported along with that movie.

Is the issue perhaps that one clip is using its original GPX track while the other is using the full FIT track? Honestly, I'd expect VIRB Edit to be able to figure that out and use the same distance/duration track for both clips, any way. I'm just trying to narrow down the problem.

A "trick" to see if both clips are using the same track for distance/duration is to look at the "Distance/Duration" tab for each of them and see if the tracks look the same.

Two other long shot ideas:
(1) Manually dragging files into that hidden "FIT" folder will not add them to VIRB Edit. They need to be received from the device for the FIT files to be searchable.
(2) If you ever worked with an earlier prerelease version of VIRB Edit 2.4 it is possible that your FIT file search index is corrupt. That's not something our users would generally be able to get their hands on, but if that happened somehow I can PM you the fix for that rather unusual use case.

0 SteveC over 11 years ago

Yep that is correct one of the clips is one I replaced the GPS file with FIT file as per my previous test - now I realise this change is made to the clip and is not unique to the project/video I am working on - in other words replacing a GPS file on a clip will be reflected in all projects/videos that use that clip.

I have also tried just using clips that I did not replace the GPS files on and getting unexpected results, only showing the track for the clip and distance/duration is reset for each one.

I have not manually copied anything, all done through VIRB Edit.

I have used every version of VIRB Edit since November and I am one of the Beta testers for Garmin, and did have a beta version before 2.4 - so you could be onto something there. How do I reset everything - happy to start from scratch and lose all history if that is what it takes?

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

I've PMed you the way to do that as it shouldn't be necessary for anyone that didn't run a prerelease version of the software.

0 SteveC over 11 years ago

Perfect, that did the trick!!

Full Track all present and correct with grey bits where there is no video, and elapsed duration / distance all good - and the best bit, VIRB Edit just works it all out for you ... very clever.

Great work ... thanks.

Last question ... what would happen if I had two VIRB Elites (e.g. Forward and Rear Facing) ... when importing from the Cameras, how would VIRB Edit cope with two FIT files for the same time frame?

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

Ideally you'd pick one GPS log you wanted to be your main track. So you'd need to manually assign a track to at least one of those videos. If you were to set one of your VIRBs to be the "main" VIRB, then the video should all be synchronized and matching up the tracks should be fairly painless. You could do it by choosing GPS Log > Replace... > Clip Library to use the track from the other camera's recording with minimal fuss.

I'm going to close this thread since it appears to be a beta only issue. I'll rename it accordingly. If anyone does run into similar issues without leftover beta data, please feel free to start a new thread.