destructive adding XMP to QT

[Bouke]

Hi guys,
Trying to add some XMP metadata to QT clips.
That works swell, but the files are copied always.
For still images I could live with that, but I have to deal with terrabytes of files that just need 1kb extra metadata.
And, the files already have a backup.

Is this even possible with ExifTool? Did I miss something?)
(In theory it should be as simple as to flag the Moov atom as free, copy the moov, alter it and add the new data to the end of the file.)

thx,
Bouke

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Bouke,

ExifTool always rewrites the entire file when writing anything.  This has a number of advantages, but can be slow for large files.

- Phil

[Bouke]

Hi Phil,
Too bad, as doubling the data is not an option for me.
But thanks for the good work anyways!

Bouke

[Phil Harvey]

You don't have to double the data.  Add the -overwrite_original option to erase the original file after writing.

The problem with this technique is speed, not storage, since you only need enough space to duplicate one file at a time.

- Phil

[Bouke]

Hi Phil,
My bad, wrong choice of words.
What I meant is that often I can't afford the copy time, as I work on huge batches of huge files.

Bouke