360 Camera Techniques

Virb Edit is the best free 360 video editor, with features not even included in paid apps

Virb Edit is a remarkable 360 video editor, with features not even included in some paid software, and it’s free!

Virb Edit is Garmin’s video editing software for its action cameras.  They updated it for the Virb 360 to add features specifically for 360 video editing, and they did an incredible job!

Add titles anywhere in your 360 video.  Adding titles to 360 video is a little tricky because if you simply overlay titles on the video, they will look warped as you move higher or lower from the ‘equator’ of your 360 video.  With Virb Edit, you can add titles that will automatically be mapped to your 360 video, keeping the normal proportions of the text no matter where you place them.  Even Adobe Premiere Pro doesn’t do this (you need a plug in)!
Change the heading.  You can change the heading of the video (the view that a viewer first sees, assuming they are looking “forward”).  This setting is under Stabilization … Set Initial Orientation.  I have 360 video editors that can’t even do this (unless you do it manually by cropping and duplicating the video).
360-compatible transitions.  There are several conventional transitions that look bizarre when used with 360 videos.  Virb Edit lets you add transitions that are compatible with 360 videos.- Speed up or slow down the video. As fast as 800% (8X speed) or as slow as 12.5% (1/8th speed).

G-Metrix and Maps.  If you have a Garmin GPS or other device, you can overlay a map or statistics on your 360 video.
The only drawbacks are that so far it seems my exports are limited to 2.7K.   I don’t know if that’s because my video clips are not from the Virb 360 or because of my PC hardware.  I did order the Virb 360, which I hope to receive soon to see if I will be able to get 4K.  You can download Virb Edit here (for Windows or Mac).UPDATE:  This is bizarre, but I’ve found that if the footage I use is from Xiaomi or 2016 Gear 360, I can export at 4K 30 fps.  If it’s from the 2017 Gear 360 (4096 x 2048), it’s limited to 2.7K.   But if I mix footage from Xiaomi and 2017 Gear 360, I can export at 4k.  On the other hand, if I add clips from the Nano or Air, the maximum I can export is 2.7K.

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Mic Ty

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  • Mic, thanks for this video editor heads up! I have just tried on iMac 5k and edit goes fine. Only issue so far is that only exports to 720p 🙁

    • further to my earlier comment.
      Original clip shot on LG360 at 2560×1280. After adding titles, etc it was exported by Virb Edit as “720” -but it was actually 1280×640.
      Playing a little bit more with the Virb software now I “add” another clip shot on 2017 Samsung Gear 360 at 4096×2048. The “whole thing” is now listed as 4k. Umm… I go to export and now I can export the whole thing as 4k! (or as 720, the only other choice it gives).
      The final file is much bigger in size than the original two (Blowed up the LG360 file, guess) but at least there’s a workaround to getting something larger than 720 for the LG files.

      In summary; I’d say Virb Edit is promising.

  • Will it stitch footage taken by other cameras?
    If not, how does it detect the camera model? Perhaps it can be tricked..

    • Mac version works with LG360 and 2017 Samsung Gear 360 (separately stitched) footage.
      (Understandably Garmin Virb-specific features such as stabilization, GPS, speed, etc data do not work for other cameras)

    • Hi Sven. Virb Edit does not stitch the videos I tried. It only functions as a video editor. I am not sure it stitches Virb videos. I think it just adds stabilization. But I will find out. Best regards, Mic

  • Mic and Tony, what are your PC specs? Looks like it’s hardware based…i will test it on my configuration and post results here. Also, is there any other free 360 editor for PC that is capable of simply joining two or more 360 clips and export them in 4k?

    • Thanks Bruno! I have one that’s i5-4590 with 8GB, and another with Xeon W3565 with 12GB. Yes you can try Collect360 or V360 for Android. Both can do simple edits like that and they’re free.
      Best regards,
      Mic

  • Did a few basic edits (changed orientation & few fades) and the export was at 4k without any problem. (the options were 720 & 4k) Did notice that the audio was out of sync though. (Test footage came from the YI VR 360 downloaded at 4k from Youtube, rather than ‘actual’ 360 footage) My intention would be to use Cyberlink Powerdirector 15, however it does not currently offer (I don’t believe) the option to select the initial orientation, which I believe would be a useful feature.

    • Thanks Ed! After tinkering with it some more, I found out that I can get 4K on the Xiaomi and the 2016 Gear 360 but not the 2017 Gear 360. It also seems that if you mix videos with different resolutions, it tends to use the lowest resolution.

      Best regards,
      Mic

  • Hi Mic,

    This seems amazing, however, I can’t get it to play my LG 360 or Kodak 4KVR360 footage. It says to each file that it contains a damaged clip that can’t be played or exported. Any idea why that could be?

    I’m on version 5.1.3. Do you have an older version you could email/Wetransfer me?

    It does import, display a thumbnail, but won’t play them.

    Surprisingly it does play my XDV Pano View footage. So it does handle other formats then Garmin footage to some extend.

    I love to have software where the inital view direction can be set, for my LG footage. My Kodak has it in it’s VR Suite, but that won’t accept other cam footage then Kodak’s.

    We’ve ‘met’ on Facebook before, nice site you have here!

    regards, Frank

      • Hey Mic, I’m using MAC, 10.12.6, 2.5Ghz core i5 with 8 Gb memory . Tried to export to 720p low quality still see a green screen during the transition of the clips or beginning of most of the clip.

  • Hi Mic,
    just intalled Virb Edit, but I haven’t the “Stabilization” voice menù between “G-metrix” and “Transitions”. What version of Virb do you used?
    thanks
    G.

  • i used the latest version on my 2013 mac to make a video from still images. the export is 4k but ita a 2 min video and the file is only 25mb and looks like rubbish.

  • So once I edit my own 360 shot video (key mission360) with virb edit, how do I then put it on my iPhone to watch as if it’s a vr set- inside a cheap cardboard cut out?
    Any help would be greatly appreciated!

    • Hi Andrew. there are many ways but the simplest is probably to upload the video to youtube. YouTube has a google cardboard mode that you can use to view it in VR.
      Best regards,
      Mic

  • Mic, i bought the gear 360 (2017) and i’m going to test using Virb as my editing software. wondering if you are still using virb as your primary s/w and if there’s been an update that will allow full 4k export of gear 360 (2017) footage??

    • Hi Tim. I haven’t tried using Gear 360 2017 footage on Virb Edit but I anticipate that there would be no problem.
      Actually I don’t use Virb Edit for editing because I use Adobe Premiere or Magix Movie Edit Pro Plus 2018 instead for editing 360 videos. 🙂
      Best regards,
      Mic

  • I used a 360 video clip from my Theta V, it has exported as a 4k video, but when I play it back it is not 360 just a flat photo. I have uploaded it to You Tube and it plays okay as a 360. I want to put it on instagram, any suggestions on what I need to do to get it to export and play correctly.