RIFF:DateTimeOriginal on old video files

[JoeS]

What is the "best" or "correct" tag to store the date taken/recorded information for a video file?

I have some 20+ year old video files from my first digital camera and they have the date the video was recorded stored in RIFF:DateTimeOriginal. This tag doesn't seem to appear anywhere in any other application and the date appears wrong.

I have been trying to copy the RIFF:DateTimeOriginal tag to exif:DateTimeOriginal, but I'm not even sure if this is possible?

This is my command for these old AVI files:
exiftool "-exif:DateTimeOriginal<RIFF:DateTimeOriginal" E:/Videotest -ext AVI

But I am getting

Code Select Expand

Error: Can't currently write RIFF AVI files
Many thanks for any advice!

[StarGeek]

See the Supported File Types table. AVI files are marked as read only. Exiftool cannot edit them.

Video files do not support EXIF data, though modern cameras do force EXIF data into videos in a non-standard way that is different for each camera company. Exiftool can read EXIF data in video files but because it is non-standard, it cannot write it.

One option would be to try and losslessly convert the AVI into an MP4 file using ffmpeg. This is the command I use. It copies all the streams and does not re-encode them. It will be as fast as if you were copying the file itself.
ffmpeg -i input.avi -c copy -map 0 -map_metadata 0 output.mp4

This may not work though, because not all AVI codecs are allowed in MP4 files. Additionally, if it does work, not all metadata may be copied. Exiftool can be used to try and copy the data but in some cases there may not be a matching tag that can be used for MP4s. MKV files can use all codecs, but not everything can view MKV files. To save as an MKV, just change output.mp4 into output.mkv. Also, exiftool cannot edit MKV files, though there is a program called MKVToolNix which is very good for dealing with MKVs.

It's not an easy thing to deal with because metadata in different file types can vary wildly and may not be compatible.

[JoeS]

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. I will give some of your ideas a go.