Ingesting photos + videos into folders by date, can't work this out

[Tir]

Another video issue I've run into - I'm trying to streamline the mess of my old collections and currently trying to ingest old iPhone (and other devices) photos and videos.

To sort it I'm trying to ingest it all into the folder path: {year4}\{year4}-{month0}
With filename: {datesort}-{timesort}-{seqn}

This works great for photos. For videos though...

This old iPhone video for example has a date created of 02 Dec 2014 (when I copied it to an external)
It has a date modified of 14 Nov 2012 (as good as I can get to its capture date I guess?)

If I apply a Stationery Pad date field on ingest to "modification time", it seems to worry about this after ingest, because it still puts it into a 2014-12 folder, when it should be put in a 2012-11 folder like all its photos friends. I noticed there are modified date variables but I don't know how to split that from the date variables I want the photos to use.

What can I do in this situation?

- Can I get the videos put in the correct folder based on date modified?
- And is there any way to leave the date field alone on photos on ingest, and only fix videos?
- Failing all this, is there any way to just leave the photos with their correct date field, sorted into their correct date folders, and just ingest the videos into some separate videos folder not named by date?

Thanks

[Kirk Baker]

You could additionally use the {mediatype} variable which will evaluate to "still" or "video" to split your videos from your images.  But it may be best to get your creation date to match your modification date.

I suggest this application (free, but there is an option to support the developer):
https://sites.google.com/site/gdkralev/smarttimestamp

Here is a review of the software that is also fairly instructional:
http://dottech.org/104563/windows-review-smart-timestamp/

Once you get your creation dates to match your modification dates, your videos will be grouped with your photos (unless you split them up by using {mediatype}).

HTH,

-Kirk

[Tir]

Thanks for the reply. That program only seemed to let you change the "date created" manually rather than copy the date from "date modified" which is what I need with the amount I have to process. However I found another program to do this - Bulk Rename Utility (Windows - free).

So now as a test I have:
- An .mp4 video with both a "date created" and "date modified" as a date in 2010.
- And a JPG with no EXIF "date taken", but also "date created" and "date modified" as a date in 2010

If I go to ingest these into a {year4}\{month0}-{day0} folder, it's just putting both of them into a 2014 folder with today's date. Ideally it should fall back to one of the other dates for folder structure if there's no date EXIF.

And as I mentioned before, even if I apply a Stationery Pad on ingest to change the date to "modification time", it changes the "date taken" on the JPG to 2010... but it's still just putting both of these into a 2014 folder with today's date.

I'm really struggling with this, even if I update missing photo date EXIF with an external tool as per my other thread, it's not going to help video. What was matching creation date to modification date meant to help with?

[Kirk Baker]

I'm really struggling with this, even if I update missing photo date EXIF with an external tool as per my other thread, it's not going to help video. What was matching creation date to modification date meant to help with?

I figured PM would pick the creation date of the file if it couldn't get the EXIF data it wants.  Apparently I was wrong.  I have no other solutions for you at this time.  I'll check with the other developers and see if there is something we can improve in a future update to Photo Mechanic for working with images and videos that don't contain standard metadata.

-Kirk

[Tir]

I see, that's disappointing, but again thanks for the quick replies.

Beyond the sorting of my old collections, I think this is quite problematic for even ingesting any NEW videos I take with my A6000. It seems that unless I ingest off the SD card the day I record a video, it's going to be stored in the wrong day's folder, apart from the photos it was taken with.

To keep a properly sorted file structure I guess I'll have to import through Lightroom. And then switch to PM for tagging/culling through the folders LR created (but what if there's dozens of days/folders worth of photos/videos from an import?)... and then switch back to Lightroom to remove the tagged culls and continue development on my picks. Hmm. Not a streamlined workflow at all. Open to suggestions.

edit: I've been testing a bit more with the AVCHD files - set my camera back 2 months, recorded a video, ingested it from the card, and PM actually put it in the correctly dated folder from two months ago. Huh.

[Tir]

Here's a screenshot illustrating the EXIF data my Sony A6000 generates for its AVCHD video files. PM used the date I marked for the folder/file structure, whereas LR used the correct date/time original info.

[Kirk Baker]

I see no image.  Please try again.

-Kirk

[Tir]

Sorry, I fixed it now.

[Hayo Baan]

Can you upload a small video file for us to have a look at? I suggest you take an e.g., one second shot with the cap on the lens to make it as small as possible. The file should be untouched by software.

[Tir]

http://1drv.ms/1uGkzym Here you go, straight from the card.

[Kirk Baker]

Photo Mechanic relies on QuickTime for handling movie metadata and it appears that QuickTime does not handle .mts files at this time.

-Kirk