What is interoperability

[acastlenut]

I have scanned the net, ExifTool docs, Exif2-3 specs and have not found a reasonable description of what interoperability is.
A good straight forward detailed explanation of its function within the exif header of an image file would be greatly appreciated.

As a side comment. Up until recently I have been using DateTimeDigitized, DateTimeOriginal and DateTime tags to read and write to images from a VB6 shell program. It seems that Date and Time was being written in the XMP section of an image file. Any comments please.

Regards Eric

[Phil Harvey]

I don't like the way the "interoperability" buzz word is used either.  I suspect it is a result of the translation from Japanese.  Basically it means the ability to transfer information/images between systems (ie. from the camera to the computer) and decode it properly.

Up until recently I have been using DateTimeDigitized, DateTimeOriginal and DateTime tags to read and write to images from a VB6 shell program. It seems that Date and Time was being written in the XMP section of an image file. Any comments please.

This is because there are no ExifTool EXIF tags named DateTimeDigitized or DateTime.  What you want are CreateDate and ModifyDate respectively.  When in doubt, check the ExifTool EXIF tag name documentation.

- Phil

[acastlenut]

I don't like the way the "interoperability" buzz word is used either.  I suspect it is a result of the translation from Japanese.  Basically it means the ability to transfer information/images between systems (ie. from the camera to the computer) and decode it properly.

Thanks for that Phil, but what I'm after is a more detailed description of its methods and in particular how it relates to Exif Metadata. If someone could point me in the direction of an online document that would be great 

This is because there are no ExifTool EXIF tags named DateTimeDigitized or DateTime.  What you want are CreateDate and ModifyDate respectively.  When in doubt, check the ExifTool EXIF tag name documentation.

Ha, Ha, yes I found out about the naming differences the hard way and after reading your docs more carefully.
I wasn't aware of the XMP tags until I noticed the entries in my image files using the image viewer "PIE"

My problem was (a trap for young players) that I used the Exif2-2.pdf document for the tag names, assuming they were identical to your tag names (and for the most part they seemed to be).

Is it possible to refer to the tags by their Tag ID eg: hex 0132 instead of ModifyDate?

Cheers

Eric

[Phil Harvey]

Thanks for that Phil, but what I'm after is a more detailed description of its methods and in particular how it relates to Exif Metadata. If someone could point me in the direction of an online document that would be great 

I would be surprised if such a document existed.

Is it possible to refer to the tags by their Tag ID eg: hex 0132 instead of ModifyDate?

ExifTool doesn't have this ability.

- Phil

[acastlenut]

Oh well, we live in hope 

Thanks Phil.

Cheers

Eric