Capture time for videos

[lnackman]

Lightroom Version Number

7.3

Operating System

1. macOS 14 Sonoma
2. iOS

When I import .MP4 videos, such as the ones produced by my Canon EOS R5, Lightroom sets the capture time to the time of import. When I look at the video form the camera, the correct capture time shows up, so it must be in the file. Is there a way to get Lightroom to pick up the appropriate time? (I understand that I can manually edit the time in LR Desktop, but it is an annoyance.). Thanks.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

This is a known problem, caused by poor video standards. There is nothing you can do about it except indeed change the capture time manually.

 

[Jim Wilde]

As Johan says, video dates/times and Lightroom don't work well together.

Having said that, I can't reproduce the same problem that you are seeing using my own R5....but I do see a couple of issues.

If I import a video directly into LrD, it shows the capture time as follows:



The actual capture time was 08.34, i.e. a one hour difference which is explained by the fact that we (me and the camera) are in a UTC+1 time-zone, so LrD has applied a time-zone offset to the capture time. After the video syncs down to LrClassic, I see the following:



Import time was 08.48, which is shown as both the Metadata Date and also the "Date Time". Notice the anomaly between Date Time Original and Date Time Digitized.....one would normally expect both to be the same, and both to be 08.34.36.

Examining the file itself, there are lots of different date/time combinations recorded by the camera, some are local time, some are UTC time, but clearly there is some confusion going on here.

It gets even murkier if I import the video directly into LrC, as then I see the following:



Bottom line: it's a mess, but a different mess to the one that you have reported. I have no explanation other than the fact that Lightroom's handling of video capture date/time is less than stellar.

 

[lnackman]

Thanks for both of your helpful responses. Jim, I didn't give enough information for you to reproduce what I'm seeing. Here's the scenario:

1. Take a video on the R5 and look at the time stamp on the camera. This is correct in my local time. See Camera display.jpeg attachment.
2. Import into Lightroom Desktop. Now the time is wrong, but clearly a time zone offset problem. See "LR Capture time after importing directly from card.png" attachment.
3. Export the video from Lightroom web. The time on the downloaded file in finder is now 11:56 (time I downloaded it) not 11:39 (the actual capture time).
4. Rename the downloaded file and import it into Lightroom desktop. Now Lightroom shows the capture time as 11:56, as can be seen in the attachment "LR Capture time after importing downloaded file.png".

So, I conclude from this experiment that Lightroom Desktop sets the capture time to whatever the time is on the file, not the actual capture time stored in the video's metadata.

This scenario is admittedly contrived, just to make it simple. In real life, it arises whenever the MP4 file is copied or moved in a way that doesn't preserve the file's time stamp. Most often, I see this when downloading a file from some browser based storage facility (like Lightroom Web or Smugmug or Google Photos); the downloaded file's time stamp is set to the time of doing the download.

To quote Jim: "it's a mess".

 

[Jim Wilde]

So, I conclude from this experiment that Lightroom Desktop sets the capture time to whatever the time is on the file, not the actual capture time stored in the video's metadata.

I think you're making an incorrect assumption in passing the "blame" onto Lightroom Desktop. It's far more likely that the cause of the problem is the download from LrWeb (or Smugmug or Google Photos) which is not including the correct EXIF data when you download. But even then, it depends on which download method you use in LrWeb.....if you use the "Original" option, you should get a copy of the original file, complete with the same EXIF dates as seen when you first imported into LrD. But if you use the "Latest Edits" option, you'll get an exported derivative and I believe it's commonly known that Lightroom doesn't handle the date information very well when it exports a video.

I just tried to recreate your amended sequence, and here are the resulting screenshots:

First, after importing into LrD, waiting for the sync upload to complete, then saving the resulting image from LrW using "Original", then importing it into LrC, I get the same outcome as my initial direct import into LrC, i.e. dates are not being stripped using that method (but it would seem that LrC doesn't handle the Date Time Original when importing videos directly):



Second, then download from LrW using the "Latest Edits" option, then importing the downloaded file into LrC:



Clearly wrong date saved from LrW in that scenario. A cursory examination of that file shows no valid date info.

 

[lnackman]

Jim: I've done some further experimentation and believe that your analysis is correct. The experiment that I tried was to use LD to import an MP4 from my camera memory card. LD got the date correct (except for timezone). I then copied the MP4 file to my Downloads folder after which the time of the file as shown in Finder was updated to the time when I moved the file. After deleting the original import, I imported the copied file. LD got the same date (except for time zone) despite my having changed the date on the file by copying it to a different drive.

So, as you said, the problem is in the exports from the various cloud services. And, of course, LD getting the timezone wrong.

You'd think that the industry would work together to fix such a basic problem, but with further searching I see that this is a longstanding situation.

Thanks again for your patience with me on this.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I then copied the MP4 file to my Downloads folder after which the time of the file as shown in Finder was updated to the time when I moved the file.

The Macintosh Finder does not show capture dates. It can only show file creation date and file modification date.