How To...

You are right that there is not really an easy way to transfer databases, but there are tools that can help you get it done in a couple minutes (not including time to copy all your files). On occasion, I need to use someone else's database on my machine for testing purposes. Here's the process I use to do the transfer. Before you do any of this, MAKE A BACKUP IN CASE YOU MESS UP!

Prerequisite: A text editor that supports find/replace operations on multiple files at once. I use Notepad++
1. Copy your Database folder to the new machine at %appdata%/Garmin/Virb Edit/
2. In the file explorer, navigate into the Database folder.
3. In the search bar (top right), search for xml. Your projects and videos are all represented by xml files in the database folders. Open all the files that it finds in your text editor. If you use Notepad++, you can select every file at once (hotkey Ctrl A), then right click and select edit with Notepad++ and all of them will open at once. Note that Notepad++ can only open about 250 files at a time, so if you have a very large database, you may need to do this in batches.
4. Do a find/replace in all open files, and replace the user name from your old machine with your new one. So if my username on the machine the database came from were Purdington_1 and my username on the machine I am transferring to is Perdington_2, replace all text that says "Purdington_1" with "Purdington_2".

If you use only default locations for everything (ie you don't keep your videos on an secondary hard drive) following these 4 steps will make your entire database work on your destination machine, assuming you transferred your video files to an analogous place your destination machine. So if your videos are all at C:/users/Purdington_1/Videos/Virb on your original machine, you can transfer them to C:/users/Purdington_2/Videos/Virb on your new machine and the paths in your database will point to the right place. If Virb Edit cannot find ANY of your videos, it should prompt you to tell it where to find them, which should ease the difficulty of transferring to a new computer if you like to keep your videos somewhere besides the default import path.

Again, if you do this wrong and mess up your paths, it is an excellent way to make sure none of you projects work next time you start VirbEdit, so always make a backup of your Database folder so you can undo your changes. Hopefully in the future we can make an automated tool that will do all this for you.

You are right that there is not really an easy way to transfer databases, but there are tools that can help you get it done in a couple minutes (not including time to copy all your files). On occasion, I need to use someone else's database on my machine for testing purposes. Here's the process I use to do the transfer. Before you do any of this, MAKE A BACKUP IN CASE YOU MESS UP!

Prerequisite: A text editor that supports find/replace operations on multiple files at once. I use Notepad++
1. Copy your Database folder to the new machine at %appdata%/Garmin/Virb Edit/
2. In the file explorer, navigate into the Database folder.
3. In the search bar (top right), search for xml. Your projects and videos are all represented by xml files in the database folders. Open all the files that it finds in your text editor. If you use Notepad++, you can select every file at once (hotkey Ctrl A), then right click and select edit with Notepad++ and all of them will open at once. Note that Notepad++ can only open about 250 files at a time, so if you have a very large database, you may need to do this in batches.
4. Do a find/replace in all open files, and replace the user name from your old machine with your new one. So if my username on the machine the database came from were Purdington_1 and my username on the machine I am transferring to is Perdington_2, replace all text that says "Purdington_1" with "Purdington_2".

If you use only default locations for everything (ie you don't keep your videos on an secondary hard drive) following these 4 steps will make your entire database work on your destination machine, assuming you transferred your video files to an analogous place your destination machine. So if your videos are all at C:/users/Purdington_1/Videos/Virb on your original machine, you can transfer them to C:/users/Purdington_2/Videos/Virb on your new machine and the paths in your database will point to the right place. If Virb Edit cannot find ANY of your videos, it should prompt you to tell it where to find them, which should ease the difficulty of transferring to a new computer if you like to keep your videos somewhere besides the default import path.

Again, if you do this wrong and mess up your paths, it is an excellent way to make sure none of you projects work next time you start VirbEdit, so always make a backup of your Database folder so you can undo your changes. Hopefully in the future we can make an automated tool that will do all this for you.

Hi Purdington,

Is there a way to merge databases? Here's my scenario...I use a PC most of the time with the Virb software, so I have a few videos already on the PC. I'm currently travelling with my laptop and Virb XE. I've downloaded the videos to my laptop to start processing in the Virb software. When I get home I'd like to transfer the project (clips, fit file and current project work) to the PC and continue working on it from there. Is this possible?

Thanks,
Brett

Yes, this should be entirely possible with a little bit of work. You will of course need to copy all your Virb Videos from your laptop to your PC. Then copy your database folder to some temporary location on your PC and do the path fixup outlined above. Once all paths point to the right place, you need to merge the folders from the laptop database to the PC one. In Windows, when you copy and paste the folder called "Database" into %appdata%\Garmin\VirbEdit (which has your current Database folder in it already), it will ask you if you want to merge the contents of the folders. Say yes. All videos and projects are assigned a globally unique identifier so there should not be any duplicate directories unless the two projects/videos really are the same. If you end up doing this often, there will be duplicates and you will need to make sure you don't overwrite the version you want to keep.

As outlined above, if you can fix all the paths in your various database files to point to the right place, everything should work correctly. I also want to reiterate the importance of making a backup of your original Database folder(s) in case things don't go according to plan.

Thanks Purdington, I'll try it out this weekend hopefully.

This video is just to help, it's NOT to show THE way things SHOULD be done, just A way things CAN be done.

Supplementary video for VIRB Edit 2.6.2
This video includes:
- Manually importing clips.
- Converting clips to .MP4 that VIRB Edit will import.
- Adding GPS data to a clip.
- Synchonizing video and GPS data.

http://youtu.be/XRsD6arrjd4
(On YouTube: http://youtu.be/XRsD6arrjd4)

EDIT:
This video is also available in Dutch / De video is er ook in het Nederlands.
http://youtu.be/RnL5_1rD9rk

I just wanted to say thank you for this video. It made all the difference in the world. The reference to the Any Video Converter was just what I needed. I was about to lose my mind trying to get videos converted for use with VIRB. :D

How to move default import folder?

Haven't found any info on that, happened to stumble upon the solution accidentally.

1. Import something, by default it imports into Video and Pictures folders in Documents and Settings folder.
2. Move the imported files (all of them) to a folder and/or drive of your choice.
3. Restart VIRB Edit
4. When the program launches, it says files are missing and asks you to choose new folder. Point it to the folder and/or drive of your choosing and you are done!

:D

Thanks for the tip ZAVESA! I've just managed to move my library of videos to my NAS and it works a treat!

Cheers,
Brett

removing overlays

is there a way to take your overlays out mid video or any other times? i was hoping to be able to take out and add them at various spots in the video but anytime i try anything it takes it out of the entire video edit, even across seperate clips

@razorvird

Under the GMetrix tab on the editing page there is a check box that says "Hide overlays for this clip". You'll have to split your clip into the parts you do and don't want overlays, and then you can enable or disable them in each clip.