RFE: make importing videos easier?

First - thanks for developing a great app - I really enjoy it and spend way too much time staring at my phone because of it :) Since I am pulling my GPS data from gopro, I am interested in simplifying/streamlining the video import process.

After a typical track day, I'll have 24 videos to import if I ride all 8 sessions due to the way the gopro chunks up the files.
The videos need to be on the phone, so I use the gopro quik utility to transfer the video to the "photos app". (This seems to work much faster and more reliably than the lightning dongles I have used). Then from inside, RC I import the video files for use by app and to define a new session. The import dialogue only lets me select one video file at time and is only sorted by filename -- this entails lots of scrolling and I have to do it 3 times for each session.

- metadata sorting would improve this -- capture date for example - most recent at top, or filename pattern filtering
- multiselect would also minimize the number of passes through this code path
- being able to specify a URL for the location of the video files for import and export -- i.e. plus.gopro, youtube,
apple drive, google drive, dropbox, etc
- another idea is to use an "action" from the photo app to import video files to RC -- then the photo app takes care of sorting/multiselect and you just have to accept the files into RC

Anyhow, no idea how feasible any of this is, but I think it would improve the usability for this use case.

While I am posting, let me also ask about why so many of the long actions (video overlay export for example) are not able to run in the background? It is really tough to ignore notifications when they keep popping up!

Comments

  • edited August 2022
    Thank you for the feedback!

    Yes, the "Photos app" selection in the import is clunky, and needs attention.

    The "Files" selection is much less clunky, and allows multiple selection, merely due to the fact it is much more common use case and I have paid attention to that.

    If the improvement is easy enough, I will do it for the next minor release. If not then it will be in the next major release (v8.0). I will let you know.
  • edited August 2022
    @apt_philly iOS 14 and later allows me to show iOS standard Photos app picker. It does not show filenames (neither does Photos app), but shows thumbnails, allows picking multiple files and allows playing back the selected files before "commit". Looks like it also works without allowing RaceChrono access to your photo library which is good.

    I'm thinking I should replace the RC's proprietary picker with this one, but it will change your workflow if you're used to relying on the filenames.

    Also, AFAIK there's only one long action that needs you to keep the app at foreground, and it's exporting videos. It's an iOS restriction and it cannot be fixed unless Apple changes things. It works just fine in background on Android :) If there's anything else that fails when you go to background, then let me know.
  • also regarding the ios photo picker — as long as the thumbnails are sorted by capture time, you wouldn't need filenames as critically.

  • edited August 2022
    @apt_philly OK. The iOS Photos app picker seems to work well. You can go to 'Recent' items etc. similar to the Photos app.
  • edited August 2022
    The new Photos app picker will be in v7.6 release.
  • > - metadata sorting would improve this -- capture date for example - most recent at top, or filename pattern filtering
    > - multiselect would also minimize the number of passes through this code path

    I think I remember having the same two issues on Android as well.
  • @aol_of_RaceChrono Note that GoPro (at least my Hero 5 Session) uses a weird file naming scheme, so that alphabetic order does not match the capture order. One HAS to sort by capture time to get the natural order.

    Similar problem if your workflow involves using Downloads. Typically when importing from Downloads you only really want to look at the last few downloaded files. However, if your Downloads are cluttered and RaceChrono forces the alphabetic order... Good luck! Unless you know where to force a different order in the menu... for every single video you import, as multi-select doesn't work!
  • edited August 2022
    @timurrrr

    Yes, all GoPros use a scheme where the chapter number is BEFORE the session number, breaking the alphabetic sorting. The RaceChrono order can be changed...

    Also Android 13 has a "Media store" picker, it might help, if your usage flow involved picking files from Media Store.
  • > The new Photos app picker will be in v7.6 release.
    Thanks @aol!
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