Videos allways 2 hours wrong in time

[frlindla]

When I add videos to Imatch, I allways have to add two hours with Timewiz to correct time. This is not the situation for photos. I live in Norway, so the time offset is two hours. But why just for videos?

[Mario]

You did not provide a sample video, or information about the metadata it contains, if any.
If the file has no information about the time-zone, IMatch assumes the local time-zone to set the global File.DateTime value (I assume this is what you refer to).
This depends on the video format, the metadata it contains etc. See How IMatch uses Date and Time Information for more information.

[ubacher]

I understand that it is some kind of standard that video files use UTC.
I get the same. (both on Nikon Z6 and Samsung phone)

[Mario]

I have never heard about all video files using UTC. Even QuickTime? Strange. This does not match what I see.
Can you post a reference?

You get the same for what?
Without a sample video which I can look at, how can I provide any analysis?
The problem is that there is no standard. Some videos use the old Apple-ish QuickTime, some use newer variants, some even use XMP now.
The code section in IMatch which finds the best suitable timestamp for video files is five meters long...
If you can provide a sample video and let me know what you would expect IMatch to extract from the file as the global File.DateTime, I will look into it.
Without samples, all is just guesswork and a waste of time.

It's not easy to get even short videos for modern cameras. Even the review sites just upload them to Vimeo or YT, and these sites reprocess the video of course, strip the metadata.
I need real samples from real cameras and smart phones.

You can send small samples (make a 10s video of your floor or the sky) and send it to my support email support email address

[ubacher]

One reference in the exiftool blog:
https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=11100.msg59329#msg59329

The standard:
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/QuickTime/QTFF/QTFFChap2/qtff2.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40000939-CH204-25691

under Movie Header Atoms

[Mario]

I'm quite sure I have considered that. Quite a while that I've worked on this. I'm not in the details anymore currently.
I will look into this again when my utilization level is lower again.

What is your setting for Edit > Preferences > Metadata 2: QuickTime Use Local Time Zone?

[ubacher]

Just tried the setting "Use local time zone".
Worked. Right time set!
(Sigh... if one could just remember/know all the capabilities of Imatch!)
Thanks

[Mario]

Just tried the setting "Use local time zone".
Worked. Right time set!
(Sigh... if one could just remember/know all the capabilities of Imatch!)
Thanks

I would also prefer less options and more 'works out-of-the box'.
But as Phil wrote: The timestamp should be in UTC - bust is not very often. Camera vendors don't care about such things.

Hence it's up to the user to let IMatch know what he expects the time to be.
It can even happen that if you have two cameras from different vendors or an older and a newer model, you'll end up with a mix of times written in UTC and local time...because the vendor did it get right only 50% of the time.