Video Equivalent of "DateTimeOriginal"?

[Phil Harvey]

Then QuickTime tags wouldn't have a time zone.

Perhaps you are talking about some other date/time tags?  Use the -G0:1 option and tell me what groups they are in.

- Phil

[Roy Brian]

Thanks Phil.

1. Eventually, I'm trying to make Google Photos display the local time of a given video. If a video was taken at 3 PM in France and another at 8 AM in the USA, then Google Photos should show 3 PM and 8 AM, respectively. What causes the trouble I think might be the discrepancy between the EXIF date/time tags, which don't hold any time zone references whatsoever, and the Finder file properties, which contain the +03:00 values. So what I'm trying to do is to offset this by adding the +03:00 value to the EXIF values as well.

2. In what part of the command do I put -G0:1?

[Phil Harvey]

The command is:

exiftool -a -s -G0:1 -time:all FILE

This will show you all date/time tags and where they came from.

- Phil

[Roy Brian]

Thanks. Here you go:

Code Select Expand


[File:System]   FileModifyDate                  : 2018:01:19 17:21:01+02:00
[File:System]   FileAccessDate                  : 2018:03:23 20:23:07+03:00
[File:System]   FileInodeChangeDate             : 2018:03:23 19:21:13+03:00
[QuickTime]     CreateDate                      : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime]     ModifyDate                      : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track1] TrackCreateDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track1] TrackModifyDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track1] MediaCreateDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track1] MediaModifyDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track2] TrackCreateDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track2] TrackModifyDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track2] MediaCreateDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track2] MediaModifyDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track3] TrackCreateDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track3] TrackModifyDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track3] MediaCreateDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track3] MediaModifyDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track4] TrackCreateDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track4] TrackModifyDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track4] MediaCreateDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37
[QuickTime:Track4] MediaModifyDate              : 2015:01:12 16:57:37


[Phil Harvey]

Right.  There are no time zones stored for any of these tags.  The system ones aren't part of the file, and they reflect only your system time zone.

- Phil

[Roy Brian]

So, do you have any idea how to solve this?

And how did the QuickTime stuff get there in the first place? Is it because I'm on a mac? The videos were taken with a GoPro, and then transferred directly to my MacBook. Nothing more.

[Phil Harvey]

QuickTime is the base format used for MP4 and many other types of videos, which is why these are in the QuickTime group.

It sounds like you want to adjust the QuickTime date/time tags according to your time zone.  The command would be something like this to subtract 2 hours from these times:

exiftool -quicktime:time:all-=2 FILE

- Phil

[Roy Brian]

Wouldn't it just set the time 2 hours behind the actual time?
The times shown above are the correct ones for that video. It's just that Google Photos show as if they were taken three hours later.

[Phil Harvey]

My suggestion was to shift the times before putting in Google Photos so it shows the correct time.  Am I missing something?  I thought this is what you wanted.  OK, 3 hours, not 2.

- Phil

[Roy Brian]

Hmm, to put things simply, I'm trying to figure out the following discrepancy:

Jan 12 2018, at 16:57:37 is the correct, actual time the video was taken.

The date/time were off by 3 years, so I applied -wm w -time:all="2018:01:12 16:57:37" to the file, and ExifTool as expected did its job well, as evident in the extracted value of -createDate:



However, this is what shows up in Google Photos. Everything's correct but the time, which is exactly three hours ahead.



The same happens with every video I've tried, so I guess I'm doing something wrong.

[Phil Harvey]

Did you ever try adding the -api quickTimeUTC option to the command when you are writing the time as I suggested?  We seem to be going around in circles.  Doing this will have the same effect as shifting the time by whatever time zone you are in.  The problem is that some software follows the QuickTime specification and stores times in UTC, and some doesn't.  I don't know what Google expects, you have to try it either way.

- Phil

[Roy Brian]

Hi Phil,

I just tried to implement what you suggested. The time is still off, albeit now by 1 hour (ahead).



This is the full command I typed in:

exiftool -wm w -api quickTimeUTC -time:all="2018:01:12 16:57:37" /Users/****/Desktop/538067733.081182.mp4

Thanks!

[Phil Harvey]

The 1 hour difference could be due to daylight savings time since we are in daylight savings time now but we weren't on Jan 12.

But knowing this doesn't help.  The solution is still the same: set the time to whatever you need so that google will display it properly.  I don't even know what time zone google is using.

- Phil

[Roy Brian]

I see. So you're suggesting to set the time one hour earlier than what it was actually?
It will indeed solve the Google Photos issue (at least while we're in daylight savings time), but may cause problems with other platforms.

[Phil Harvey]

I'm saying that this is the only way you'll get it to display properly in Google Photos.  If you use other software that displays it differently, then there is probably no way to get them all to agree on the proper time.  But you don't need to worry about that if you are only using Google Photos.

- Phil