Camera Make/Model To Associate Both Image & Video Files

Started by Darius1968, November 29, 2021, 03:29:32 AM

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Darius1968

As is, IMatch ships with @All|IMatch Standard Categories|Image Files|Make and Model.  This data-driven category is based on two Exif tags. 
As such, I have found, that - with respect to my old smartphone (iPhone 4) - the image files show up in this category, whereas the .mov video files don't.  This is because - at least, it was the case with that particular smartphone - .mov files are not at all associated with any Exif/XMP tags; All make/model info is via the QuickTime tags. 
So, in light of this, about the differences in how Apple goes about handling image vs. video files, is there a way to have such a data-driven category account for both cases, at the same time? 

Mario

You can create a new data-driven category which does not use EXIF tags but the QuickTime tags Apple uses for your camera model to record this information.
QuickTime is a very volatile Apple metadata format that Apple changes quite often and the information you are looking for may be in different tags for different camera models.
Why Apple did not switch to using XMP 10 or 20 years ago and instead still relies on the ancient and complex QuickTime metadata, only Apple can tell you.

To combine image files and video files of different brands and models into one data-driven category could possible be achieved using a variable-based data-driven category with a variable that checks different tags and uses the first one found. Doable but probably quite slow for larger databases.

Another solution would be to enhance the artificial photools.com\cameraname tag IMatch produces from a sanitized and cleaned-up version of EXIF\Make and EXIF\Model. I could maybe add addition routines to check for Apple QuickTime make/model info when producing this tag. This won't do anything for existing databases (unless you reload metadata for files) but it could make a "better" tag for using with this particular system category.
-- Mario
IMatch Developer
Forum Administrator
http://www.photools.com  -  Contact & Support - Follow me on 𝕏 - Like photools.com on Facebook

Mario

As an enhancement, I have made the photools.com::cameraname tag smarter for the next release.
It also considers QuickTime make/model now, and also some other tags used by some vendors for video files.

I have many videos in my sample library which have no info for make/model in QuickTime, or even stuff like None, [None] or Unknown. As if the camera/phone vendor was unsure what his name is...

With the next release, if you force a metadata rescan for videos (after writing back pending metadata!), the camera name should be filled for your Apple files.
Then delete the "IMatch Standard Categories" category hierarchy and re-import it from C:\ProgramData\photools.com\IMatch6\Presets\system-en.imcsx. This gives you a new category Camera Name, which looks similar to this:

-- Mario
IMatch Developer
Forum Administrator
http://www.photools.com  -  Contact & Support - Follow me on 𝕏 - Like photools.com on Facebook