AVI Metadata

[armlocks101]

First I want to say thanks for this tool. I need some help though so any advise would be greatly appreciated. This isn't a pressing matter by any means but I'd like to figure it out because my son keeps asking me to fix this. I don't know what all information you need to know in order to help me so I will give as much as I can. What I'm trying to do is change the "Title" in an AVI file's metadata. To be very specific, I have some avi files of a cartoon show for my son and the metadata has some incorrect data like labeling the files with the wrong episode title.

I'm far from any sort of developer so a LOT of this stuff goes way over my head. I've been reading this site, the faq and playing with the tool for hours now and I know my way around a little bit but I'm far from competent. And by "far from competent" I mean I'm "incredibly confused". Here's what I've done so far: I downloaded ExifTool, tried that for awhile but was so lost it's absurd. Then I downloaded ExifTool GUI. After fumbling around with it for awhile, I finally figured out what I needed to do to change the title. The title is currently "Avengers - Earth's Mightiest Heroes 103 {C_P}" but this isn't episode 3, it's episode 1. So I want to change it and make it simplier for my son to understand what he's clicking on. So, I clicked on "Exiftool direct" then typed   -Title="1 - Iron Man is Born" and hit OK. I'm sure you know that it came back with an error saying writing avi files isn't supported. I searched the forums and the faq and it looks like there is a work around for this but I'm really confused on how to execute. I don't know what other information is relevant but the file name is "The.Avengers.Earth's.Mightiest.Heroes.S01E01.Iron.Man.is.Born.{C_P}"

Can someone please tell me how to do this in "dummy" terms? I'm in no rush because I'm sure answering this may take more time than you've got but if someone could take a few minutes to explain this to me, it would be extremely appreciated.

[Phil Harvey]

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is simple:  ExifTool does not yet have the ability to write metadata in AVI videos.  Sorry.

- Phil

[armlocks101]

Oh ok. Thanks for taking the time to reply.  I didn't know exactly what you were talking about in FAQ #16. I certainly didn't think this would be so difficult though. Is there a reason it's impossible? I couldn't find anything that worked.  Is there simply no way to do this?

I appreciate the help.

[Phil Harvey]

FAQ 16 talks about renaming AVI files.  ExifTool may be used to modify filesystem characteristics of a file (FileName, Directory, FileModifyDate), but can't be used to write metadata inside an AVI file.  This is not an impossible task, and there are other utilities that do this (for example, I think Adobe Bridge will do this), however ExifTool doesn't yet have this feature.

[Daniele Ristori]

Dear Phil,

Do you plan to support writing for AVI metadata? That would be great because I need to set -XMP:DateTimeOriginal<MakerNotes:DateTimeOriginal on AVI files from a Nikon D90 camera in order to get them properly renamed in Lightroom 4. Thank you for the things you've allready done for us metadata freaks!

Daniele

[Hayo Baan]

Doesn't writing the XMP:DateTimeOriginal tag, like you want to do, just work?

[Phil Harvey]

Right.  There is no AVI (RIFF) write support yet.  I don't know that adding write support for this now obsolete format would be worth the effort.

- Phil