Change Exif from Videos (AVI,...)

[JanK]

I know that Exiftool can't change the DateTimeOriginal from my AVI files. But I have to. Does anyone know a good tool for doing that? Maybe like exiftool but also for videos. I am on Mac so Mac Software would be great.

[BogdanH]

Hi Jan,

Try here: http://www.videohelp.com/

Bogdan

[JanK]

I think there is no tool out for any OS that change Exif in Video.
Many UnprofEssional help does not knowing the different between Exif Dates and Filesystem Dates. And a lot of people refer to Exiftool unknowing that it can't change avi even if the Thread starter mentioned that Exiftool does not write.

When you set a wrong time in camera all videos are effected to. So I am not alone. How do you solve the problem?

Please let me know if anybody know a tool for changing the Exifdata of a avi file.

[Alan Clifford]

Maybe you could use a hex editor and change the dates that way.  They are strings so should be easy to find.  I have no idea if anything would be damaged by doing this.

[JanK]

Without knowing what I do I use "SynalyzeIt" for open the AVI in a HEX Editor. In the upper right I found this


I changed the three dates/time (2010:03:20 19:18:48) to another date and saved the AVI. After analyzing it with Exiftool I saw that the dates/times were changed to the one I entered in HEX Editor. In Finder I saw that the File size is completely the same. The avi plays correctly and I saw no difference. At this point THANK YOU!

But I don't know what I did. What happen to the file when I edit it in the Hex Editor "SynalyzeIt"? Is anything else changed in the file? Could the file be damage or not workable in any other videoplayer? Please give me some background to the editing with a Hex editor.

[Phil Harvey]

The hex editor shouldn't change any bytes except those you edited manually.

Just editing the existing ASCII date/time strings shouldn't cause any other problems in an AVI file.  But be careful not to insert or delete any bytes, or change anything else.

- Phil

[Alan Clifford]

But I don't know what I did. What happen to the file when I edit it in the Hex Editor "SynalyzeIt"? Is anything else changed in the file? Could the file be damage or not workable in any other videoplayer? Please give me some background to the editing with a Hex editor.

Everything is bits and bytes.  So start by looking at this ascii table.  http://www.asciitable.com/

The decimal value 50 could represent the number 2 in a text document.  However, in a photo, that 50 could be part of a multibyte value representing the shade of the colour red.  In a program (an .exe file), it could be part of an instruction. A text editor will interpret the value of 50 one way; as part of a photo it will be interpreted a different way and so on.  With a hex editor, you are looking at the raw bytes without any interpretation. 

What you did was change the value of byte that is usually interpreted as a number to the value of another number.

My only worry with this was if there was some sort of, say, a checksum, mechanism that would be upset with such hacking.  Phil thinks you will be OK so I'd go with that.

Consider yourself a "hacker" now!

(ps I still live in an 8 bit world so this explanation should be considered very basic)

[JanK]

Thank you all. No I spend some time to also edit my video files and bring them to the right time. Thanks a lot.

[Phil Harvey]

As Alan mentioned, some file formats (like PNG for example) include a checksum, so you can't simply edit ASCII strings in these types of files.  But to my knowledge, there is no checksum for the metadata in an AVI video.  (Although there may be a checksum in the video stream data, depending on what codec was used.  However, I doubt you would find ASCII date/time strings in the video stream.  Currently, ExifTool doesn't extract information from the audio or video streams of AVI files.)

- Phil

[cjoshua]

I am not that quite sure  what you are going to two with this but considering what has been going on as official as of late, you would be needing and extra software just so you could have it done. 

And looking at the options available, it would be a nice idea to try those plug-ins that just erase any form of record and what is in just to see how that should work.