ExifTool Forum

General => Metadata => Topic started by: blue-j on March 04, 2024, 09:00:58 PM

Title: Subseconds
Post by: blue-j on March 04, 2024, 09:00:58 PM
I have a couple questions about fractional seconds.

1) EXIF specifies separate fields for subseconds, but in the wild are the dates often including them as well?

2) Is there any use case where people would want to be able to edit the subseconds?

-J
Title: Re: Subseconds
Post by: StarGeek on March 04, 2024, 11:39:51 PM
Quote from: blue-j on March 04, 2024, 09:00:58 PM1) EXIF specifies separate fields for subseconds, but in the wild are the dates often including them as well?

I'm not sure what you're asking.  Dates are included in the main tag, CreateDate, DateTimeOriginal, and ModifyDate.  Subseconds are in separate tags, one that matches each of the main ones.

Quote2) Is there any use case where people would want to be able to edit the subseconds?

As for editing a file because it was off by 1 or 2 subseconds?  Not really I wouldn't think.  Not very practical.

Now if you have a sequence of images that didn't have original subseconds that all took place in a single second, then you might want to add them to keep the sequence in order.  As an example, this SuperUser question (https://superuser.com/questions/1833330/video-to-geotagged-images-using-powershell), where they were extracting individual frames from a GoPro video and needed to have the subseconds in order to geotag the individual frames properly.
Title: Re: Subseconds
Post by: blue-j on March 07, 2024, 03:03:05 PM
I was just wondering if it was common for people to break from the EXIF spec and include subseconds inline with the datetimes.

Regarding use case, thank you so much!  That is a valid use case!  : )

- J
Title: Re: Subseconds
Post by: Phil Harvey on March 19, 2024, 01:32:10 PM
I don't recall seeing subseconds added to the EXIF date/time values very often.

- Phil