Can't write wmv/asf CreationDate to filename

[kayson]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to use exiftool to organize some very old video files. If I run

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exiftool -creationdate -if "`$creationdate" -r .
I get some results as expected:

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  127 directories scanned
  462 files failed condition
   51 image files read
If I try to write this to the filename, not only does it not do so, it also seems to break scanning somehow... It's scanning the correct number of directories, but somehow a different number of files failed the same condition, and nothing gets read.

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exiftool -d "../%Y/%m/IMG_%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e" "-filename<creationdate" -if "`$creationdate" -r .
  127 directories scanned
  249 files failed condition
    0 image files read
What am I doing wrong here?

Here's an example of one of the files:

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[ExifTool]      ExifToolVersion                 : 12.59
[System]        FileName                        : tour.WMV
[System]        Directory                       : ./family pictures1/personal pictures
[System]        FileSize                        : 17 MB
[System]        FileModifyDate                  : 2002:03:28 10:59:22-07:00
[System]        FileAccessDate                  : 2023:03:28 22:39:54-07:00
[System]        FileCreateDate                  : 2023:03:27 19:10:52-07:00
[System]        FilePermissions                 : -rw-rw-rw-
[File]          FileType                        : WMV
[File]          FileTypeExtension               : wmv
[File]          MIMEType                        : video/x-ms-wmv
[ASF]           FileID                          : 5E581C8D-4BE2-47E4-867A-6E69AAFB66B2
[ASF]           FileLength                      : 16728135
[ASF]           CreationDate                    : 2002:03:28 17:59:03Z
[ASF]           DataPackets                     : 12970
[ASF]           Duration                        : 0:21:46
[ASF]           SendDuration                    : 0:21:42
[ASF]           Preroll                         : 3100
[ASF]           Flags                           : 2
[ASF]           MinPacketSize                   : 1289
[ASF]           MaxPacketSize                   : 1289
[ASF]           MaxBitrate                      : 103 kbps
[ASF]           StreamType                      : Audio
[ASF]           ErrorCorrectionType             : Audio Spread
[ASF]           TimeOffset                      : 0 s
[ASF]           StreamNumber                    : 1
[ASF]           AudioCodecID                    : Windows Media Audio V2 V7 V8 V9 / DivX audio (WMA) / Alex AC3 Audio
[ASF]           AudioChannels                   : 1
[ASF]           AudioSampleRate                 : 16000
[ASF]           StreamType                      : Video
[ASF]           ErrorCorrectionType             : No Error Correction
[ASF]           TimeOffset                      : 0 s
[ASF]           StreamNumber                    : 2
[ASF]           ImageWidth                      : 320
[ASF]           ImageHeight                     : 240
[ASF]           AudioCodecName                  : Windows Media Audio V8
[ASF]           AudioCodecDescription           :  16 kbps, 16 kHz, mono
[ASF]           VideoCodecName                  : Windows Media Video V7
[ASF]           VideoCodecDescription           :
[ASF]           Title                           :
[ASF]           Author                          : The xxxxxxx
[ASF]           Copyright                       :
[ASF]           Description                     :
[ASF]           Rating                          :
[Composite]     ImageSize                       : 320x240
[Composite]     Megapixels                      : 0.077(I don't want to use modify date since its wrong for at least half the files)

Thanks!

[Phil Harvey]

I think this is FAQ 16.

- Phil

[kayson]

I think this is FAQ 16.

- Phil

It is indeed! Thank you. I even searched through the FAQ but missed it 1) because of the different file extension and 2) I didn't read the fine print about the pseudotags.

It might be worth considering adding some kind of mention in the output about what happens. It fails completely silently. If I run it with -v, the wmv files just didn't show up at all, so it seemed like they were getting ignored but I couldn't figure out why.

There also might be some bug somewhere because it doesn't make sense that a different number of files fail the condition. Is it just exiting after it encounters the first wmv?

[Phil Harvey]

A different number of files failed the condition when writing because ExifTool scans for different files when writing.  This command lists files extensions that ExifTool will read:

exiftool -listf

and this lists files that it will write:

exiftool -listwf

The writable list is maybe 1/3 the size of the readable files.

- Phil