GoPro video GPS location information tags to be recognized by other apps

[AdamF]

Hi all, I was hoping to get some help on extracting GPS information from a GoPro video files. I'm having inconsistent results with videos taken on the same day.

FILE 1:
I run this command:
exiftool -a -G1 -s -n -ee FILE1.MP4
I see many results, but of interest:

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[GoPro]         Model                           : HERO10 Black
[Composite]     GPSLatitude                     : 43.8719
[Composite]     GPSLongitude                    : -71.6062
[Composite]     Rotation                        : 0
[Composite]     GPSPosition                     : 43.8719 -71.6062
I then run this command:
exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place '-Keys:GPSCoordinates<Composite:GPSPosition' '-Keys:Model<GoPro:Model' FILE1.MP4

I now see:

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[Keys]          GPSCoordinates                  : 43.8719 -71.6062
[Keys]          Model                           : HERO10 Black
Great! Now Apple Photos shows the location and camera model.

However...

FILE 2:
I start with this information in the file right off the camera:

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[GoPro]         Model                           : HERO10 Black
[Composite]     Rotation                        : 0
[Composite]     GPSPosition                     : 54.8870613 -75.1084575
Note that while I have GPSPosition, this one doesn't have GPSLatitude or GPSLongitude. I suppose it shouldn't matter based on the script I'm running doesn't look for those. Anyway, I run the same second script as above on FILE2 and my results:

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[Keys]          Model                          : HERO10 Black
Why doesn't it copy over to Keys:GPSCoordinates? Now Apple Photos doesn't recognize the location. I took about 10 videos that day and I seem to be getting random results with all files (although it's consistent with each file). Some work, some don't.

Thank you for the help.

[StarGeek]

Can you share a file where this happens?

The Composite:GPSPosition doesn't actually exist in the file. It is a Composite tag, which are tags created by exiftool on the fly by combining other tags that do exist in the file. In this case, it is created by combining the GPSLatitude and GPSLongitude tags. So they have to exist somewhere in the file for it to be created.

There's not much we can do without being able to check the file to figure out what's going on.

[AdamF]

Can you share a file where this happens?

The Composite:GPSPosition doesn't actually exist in the file. It is a Composite tag, which are tags created by exiftool on the fly by combining other tags that do exist in the file. In this case, it is created by combining the GPSLatitude and GPSLongitude tags. So they have to exist somewhere in the file for it to be created.

There's not much we can do without being able to check the file to figure out what's going on.

I see! This is very helpful, thank you. Normally I would share but the files contain videos of my children so I'd prefer not to. But your explanation helps a lot. I have a feeling that GPS may not have been on or perhaps it hadn't locked onto a GPS coordinate properly yet because Lat and Long are missing from the second file. Interesting that it does have something in the Composite tag however and has lots of other GPS information throughout. For instance, I was able to export a .KML and create a path in Google Earth. I may update my script to take just the first coordinate it finds in the file and use that so that Apple Photos has something to go by. Thank you!

[StarGeek]

Ah, you have the -ee (-extractEmbedded) option on your command first command, but not on your copy command. That probably means that there is a GPS track in the file but not standard GPS tags.

Try adding the -ee option to your copy command.

[AdamF]

Ah, you have the -ee (-extractEmbedded) option on your command first command, but not on your copy command. That probably means that there is a GPS track in the file but not standard GPS tags.

Try adding the -ee option to your copy command.

Yep, that helped! I used -ee3 and it pulled it over from the Composite. Thanks!