ExifTool does not report time zone for .mov files

[uhthomas]

I've passed a .mov file through exiftool and ffprobe and found that exiftool does not include the timezone for the "Create Date" tag like ffprobe does.

Please see the output from both commands:

exiftool: https://gist.github.com/uhthomas/4b1d8309330698d58bcb0d32034fa86d#file-exiftool-sh-L19

ffprobe: https://gist.github.com/uhthomas/4b1d8309330698d58bcb0d32034fa86d#file-ffprobe-sh-L18

[ericconn]

It looks like ffprobe is assuming the Time Zone is GMT for that attribute, because it just lists is as 0 Zulu. Exiftool doesn't assume there's a Time Zone associated with that attribute.

But also look further down at Creation Date, it has a value with a Time Zone. There are multiple date values in the metadata that mean multiple things and are written in a multiple of ways by the various cameras. This camera puts the Time Zone into this field:

Code Select Expand

Creation Date: 2023:06:11 14:30:35+01:00
Do you ever output to CSV? It's a little easier to comb through the values and also sort, so you can see all the date values next to each other and see which one is the one you're looking for. There's DateCreated, CreateDate, DateTimeOriginal, etc.

[StarGeek]

Most video time stamps are supposed to be set to UTC and the program is supposed to adjust this to the local time zone when displayed (see 4th paragraph on the Quicktime tags page), with the most common exceptions being the Quicktime:CreationDate (not to be confused with the Quicktime:CreateDate) and the Quicktime:DateTimeOriginal.

Looking at your output, I don't see the difference.  Exiftool reports the CreateDate, the TrackCreateDate, and MediaCreateDate as "2023:06:11 13:30:35"

The ffprobe output lists Input #0->Metadata->creation_time as "2023-06-11T13:30:35.000000Z".  This would match to the exiftool CreateDate time stamp.  Looking at the various streams, the Metadata->creation_time is the same, which would match the TrackCreateDate and MediaCreateDate in the exiftool output.

Take note that you are not seeing all the data with the exiftool command you used.  You should be using the command in FAQ #3 so you can see the track time stamps for each stream.

Finally, exiftool reports the CreationDate as "2023:06:11 14:30:35+01:00". This is the time stamp I mentioned about as being one of the exceptions to saving as UTC. This matches the Input 0->Metadata->com.apple.quicktime.creationdate time stamp.

You can add the -api QuickTimeUTC option to your exiftool command and exiftool will adjust the UTC time stamps to the local time zone of the computer you are using.