exiftool can't read some microsoft data

[StarGeek]

This is a weird one.  I'm testing out what metadata Windows reads for a video file.

After I fill a lot of tags for a short video, Windows doesn't display anything under properties.  Ok, Windows seems to choke on it.  But if I then fill out the "Tags" property and save it in this file, exiftool displays only two of the four entries.

Here's the Properties window, showing four keywords, test1, test 2, test 3, and test 4.


Output from exiftool

Code Select Expand

C:\>exiftool -g1 -a -s -microsoft:Keywords "Y:\!temp\Test1.mp4"
---- Microsoft ----
Keywords                        : test1, test 2

I thought you might want to look at the Microsoft:Keywords in the attached file to see if there's a reason that exiftool can't extract all four entries.

[Phil Harvey]

Thanks!  I'll look into this when I get a chance.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

Not high priority, I think, as I think this is an extreme condition I'm putting Windows under to get this result.

[Phil Harvey]

I really hate Microsoft.  In this file, and in the documentation I have found, elements of a VT_VECTOR array are padded to an even 4-byte boundary.  However, with many other samples from Microsoft software they are not padded.  Currently ExifTool isn't expecting them to be padded.  I'll see if I can add a patch to make that padding optional.  Messy.

- Phil