Leading dots and trailing shash in UserData:GPSCoordinates

[voidmain]

Hello!

I have mp4 video with GPS coordinates in UserData section. Adobe Lightroom shows video location after import. But if I change coordinates via: exiftool -UserData:GPSCoordinates="44.0102, 39.9731" 2.mp4, Lightroom doesn't show the location anymore. After some research I found that in original file GPS coordinates had leading dots and trailing slash, which are missing after exiftool:

Source video metadata:

Code Select Expand


  | UserData (SubDirectory) -->
  | + [UserData directory]
  | | GPSCoordinates = ...+44.0102+039.9731/


Updated video metadata:

Code Select Expand


  | UserData (SubDirectory) -->
  | + [UserData directory]
  | | GPSCoordinates = .+44.0102+039.9731


Is it possible to change location and preserve leading zeros and trailing slash? Or maybe you have any idea how to make Lightroom to understand updated location...

Sample video can be downloaded here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2yjw6dutzdprqpw/2.mp4?dl=1

[Phil Harvey]

Try this and tell me if Adobe Lightroom recognizes these coordinates:

exiftool -UserData:GPSCoordinates-eng="44.0102, 39.9731" FILE

This will write the same language code (the three dots you saw -- use -v3 to see the full binary value), but the value still won't have a trailing "/".

The trailing "/" is problematic.  I don't ever recall seeing this in a file (but I'll have to go over my samples to check), however there is mention of this in the ISO 6709 specification.  I wouldn't want to make a change that would break things for other readers, so this will require some research.  With any luck just writing the -eng (english) language GPSCoordinates tag will solve the problem.

- Phil

[voidmain]

Thanks for the fast reply! I've tried to add -eng, but it doesn't help: Lightroom still doesn't recognize the location. The only way to make Lightroom read GPS coordinates I found is to write coordinates to XMP:GPSLatitude and XMP:GPSLongitude. It works, but IMHO it would be better if I can preserve the original metadata structure. So I would appreciate it if you would write here the results of your research about trailing "/". Thank you!

[Phil Harvey]

OK.  I've checked a number of samples, and while DJI products do not write the trailing "/", Apple products do.  Somehow I missed this until now.

So I'll patch ExifTool, and version 12.09 will write the trailing "/".

- Phil

[voidmain]

Thank you!

[Phil Harvey]

ExifTool 12.09 is now available.

- Phil

[voidmain]

Awesome! Now Lightroom shows updated GPS-coordinates. Thank you again!

[Phil Harvey]

Great.  Thanks for testing this, and for bringing this problem to my attention in the first place.

- Phil