Until there is a reliable way for backing up and restoring the Library, users are loath to put a lot of effort into making the most of the Library.

It can be done manually, but requires the user to work in Windows with Hidden Folders, and is not future-proof - if Pinnacle decided to upgrade the Library format then manual backups might not work.

At a simple level it should be possible to backup and restore a Library, but the feature could be more powerful.

I'd like to see Save Library As, Load Saved Library, Clear Library and Add Saved Library to Current Library options - either in the File menu or the Control Panel. This would allow users to build a standard working Library that they could transfer between machines, to make temporary libraries for individual projects without having to manually delete them, and merge old and new libraries.

Where there was a clash of data - I can see an issues with Bins and Collections having the same name and items with varying rating - then the user could be given the usual Windows type options of Replace, Don't Replace or Merge (for ratings the highest value could prevail)

If a new format of Library were introduced, Pinnacle could build in a conversion stage when loading old Libraries.

I know we all have different priorities for new features and different priories, but it seems to me that Pinnacle look for new features that aren't on the regular users list, rather they seem to choose to develop Studio to converge it with Corel VideoStudio (which does have a form of Library Management). So I'm putting this out here on the public forum for discussion and to gauge how many users would make use of it. (It's not my #1 wish, BTW)

+1

I believe that at the absolute minimum there needs to be the ability to back up and restore all user-added stuff in the library; IMO some kind of library maintenance tool set (backup/restore and simple check/repair) should have been in right from the start in Avid Studio! Certainly needed for those odd occasions that the effects database gets fouled-up and needs a complete database reset to mend it...

And I agree that library manipulation (load/save etc. would be good too...).

Regards,
Richard

I realise this is an old post. I came across it while searching the forum for information regarding backing up the Library. I thought the feature request was quite reasonable but I don't think anything has been developed four years since the request was posted.

 Anyway,  to back up the Library in PS23, is it simply making a copy of  C:\Users\User name\AppData\Local\Pinnacle_Studio_23

Or do I have to go deeper?

 

Candive:

 Anyway,  to back up the Library in PS23, is it simply making a copy of  C:\Users\User name\AppData\Local\Pinnacle_Studio_23

Correct.

That copies everything. If you just want to archive the library, you only need to backup the ngdatabase folder.

http://pinnaclestudioinfo.dtvpro.co.uk/resetting-studio

Thanks guys for the quick response and jjn, thanks tor the link and comprehensive write up. I'm sure many on this forum will find it informative.

Candive:

Thanks guys for the quick response and jjn, thanks tor the link and comprehensive write up. I'm sure many on this forum will find it informative.

I link to it at least once a week ;-)

Ok, just to take it one step further, We are coming into August where I suspect Pinnacle will be offering a new version; PS24. If I've made extensive use of the library in PS23, with multiple collections and bins, utilising stars and tags for clips etc and I don't want to manually rebuild all this again if I upgrade, I would simply overwrite the PS24 NGDatabase with the PS23 NGDatabase with the understanding that it might not work if Pinnacle made substantial changes to the Library in the new version. 

Exactly. I just tested the principle from PS22 to 23 with a relatively small Library but with tags, ratings and collections and it worked.

However, when you install a new version of Studio (or perform a reset), the install looks for older libraries (back to PS19) and adds them to the opening Library (this process can be a bit slow, you might need to wait a while for all the content to get thumbnails and so on). The issue with that is that it doesn't add tags and ratings. So if you do use those features, you still need to replace the new library with the old one.

Obviously until PS24 is released there is no way of knowing if the same holds true, but I'd guess that if they haven't changed the format in 4 years they are unlikely to do it now.