Changeing the date/time of videoformats in imatch

[Frank]

Currently I do have a problem in changeing the date/time of some video files formats like *.MOV.

Using the "Modify Exif Date and Time" does not work for videos.

Exiftool command Processor does even not work mentioned in a other post.

Is there any hint for doing it?

regards
Frank

[Mario]

Video files usually don't contain EXIF data.
Every video format uses different ways to store date and time, if they store date and time at all.

Look at one of your files in the Metadata Panel in the Browser layout. When I do that for you for a MOV file, I see that there is date and time information e.g. in the Media Header and in the Movie header. That's QuickTime proprietary metadata, not EXIF.

[Frank]

Hi Mario,
you are right, not all video formats even have a date included. In the past I wrote the exif Datecreated into the sidecarfile manually and that Ferdinands Script added the movie to the right categorie. Now with Imatch 5 I do have the same problem.

But the MOV does has exif information included see attachment.

How can I handle the date Time stuff of video files with Imatch 5?

Is there a way of adding a photools specific attribute to the xmp sidecar which reads the timelinestuff?

regards
Frank

[Mario]

No attachment?

When I look at a .MOV file with Exifool on the command line using

exiftool.exe -exif:all "test.mov"

no data is returned. At least the sample MOV files I have here do not contain EXIF data and I could not find any info about QuickTime supporting EXIF data in MOV files.

When I use Commands > Image > Modify Exif Date and Time to change the date of a MOV file, this attempts to set the EXIF time (fails) and the XMP time (succeeds) of the file. When IMatch afterwards reloads the metadata from the file, it tries to find a valid date and time info to use as the standard EXIF date and time attribute. IMatch here proceeds as follows (see also the corresponding info in the help, searhc for :

It checks the EXIF timestamps first. This returns no result for the file.
It then determines the file format and checks if there is a special handler for the given format.
In case of MOV there is, and IMatch looks at the following tags to determine a valid date and time:

QuickTime::MediaHeader\\1\\MediaCreateDate
QuickTime::MediaHeader\\2\\MediaModifyDate
QuickTime::MovieHeader\\1\\CreateDate
QuickTime::MovieHeader\\2\\ModifyDate

for the MOV files I have, IMatch find s a valid date either in QuickTime::MediaHeader\\1\\MediaCreateDate or QuickTime::MediaHeader\\2\\MediaModifyDate usually.

If a date and time is found or not, IMatch afterwards checks the XMP date and time tags. IMatch assumes that the XMP date and time is "more current" or "more valid" than native data. Since we updates the XMP date and time in step one above, IMatch finds the new date and time and uses it as the EXIF date and time in the UI (e.g. file window).

In short, the Image > Set EXIF date and time works, by setting the XMP date and time information.
You can of course also set the XMP date and time directly in the Metadata Panel:

XMP::xmp\CreateDate\CreateDate

This will also change the date and time you see in the file window.

If your MOV files somehow contain EXIF data, IMatch uses the EXIF data contained in the file if it is valid, in the sequence DateTimeOriginal, DateTimeDigitized, DateTimeModified.

[Frank]

Here are the attachments
Sorry
Frank

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Mario]

Did you consider my suggestions?

[Frank]

Yes but it does not work here. Either I do not understand or there is a different in the files. My Files do has exif information. These information are wrong and unfortunality I cannot change them.

I have sent you an mail with a samplefile

Any help is appreciated
Frank

[Mario]

As I suspected in my initial reply: EXIF is non-standard for .MOV files. The MOV file format specification does not mention EXIF anywhere.

I've asked Phil Harvey from ExifTool about this and this is his reply:

ExifTool currently only writes some standard QuickTime date/time tags in MOV videos.  The embedded EXIF is non-stanard, and writing this is currently not supported.

This is why you cannot write-back EXIF date and time information to MOV files in IMatch, either via the Metadata Panel or the Tool.
I suggest you use XMP data instead. Or the official QuickTime date and time information in the MOV files (these are optional, but standard).
Or get some software from Canon which can edit the EXIF data they write into your MOV files.

[Photon]

I would like to have an optional setting in Imatch which does allow to all multimedia, office, audio, data, txt, ... file extensions a definition of a date/time regardless of information which could be read or written correct or incorrect in the file itself. This date/time shall only be used for correct timeline, sorting and display in IMatch and its database together with all the other digital image files and the few other date/time supported file extensions.

You know what I mean? I do not care too much about metadata in my video files (ts, mov, wmv, qt, mp2, mp4, asf, m2ts, avi, dvr-ms, vob, ...) but I would like to be able to set date/time manually in order to sort them correctly with related image files. With such option IMatch and ExifTool would not have too much work, because the potential embedded metadata in files could just be ignored. I do not need at all, that such IMatch internal date/time is stored in such files, because my filenames are anyhow named yyyymmdd-HHMM... Renaming files with such internal date/time or vice versa the reverse setting of this internal IMatch time/date from such file name through a script would be brilliant.

I assume that a really simple date/time feature is at least also a part of other similar users requests and the original posters intention?

Martin

[Mario]

Feature requests should be posted in the feature requests forum. Requests posted in-line in other topics will be forgotten.

I have already a configurable time-line on my to-do list. But my to-do list is very full, I can tell ya.