Exporting Metadata within Video Files in LrC

[alancos]

Lightroom Version Number

15.2.1

Operating System

1. macOS 26 Tahoe

Hello all,

I like to import my video files along with my photos into Lightroom Classic - These can be via my Sony A6700, digital camera, but more often they are from an iPhone, Osmo Pocket 3 gimbal or my various Action Cameras.

Just like with my photos, I then like to add metadata, such as keywords, date/time corrections and even GPS location.

Lightroom Classic appears to treat this metadata just like it does with photos, until you try and export a file - Then it ignores all changes and simply exports as the video was actually taken.
This is the same if you export as "original, unedited file" or an "H.264" edited variant.

Does anyone know of a workaround to allow the metadata changes to be included with the exported file ?

Many thanks in advance

 

[clee01l]

Unlike Still Photography, there are no accepted standards for Video Metadata. I think this is why Adobe simply copies the metadata from the original video file to the derivative file.

 

[johnbeardy]

Unlike Still Photography, there are no accepted standards for Video Metadata.

True, and different apps have different ways of deciding which metadata to read in videos.

I think this is why Adobe simply copies the metadata from the original video file to the derivative file.

That's not true in Bridge which reads and writes metadata to videos. So one workaround is to use Bridge to add metadata before importing the video into LR.

In LR itself all Adobe do is store metadata in the catalogue, and they don't apply metadata to the derivatives exported from LR. It only reads metadata in videos when they are first imported.

That why I wrote my Video Metadata plugin to read/save metadata from video files, and apply it to derivatives upon export.

 

[alancos]

True, and different apps have different ways of deciding which metadata to read in videos.

That's not true in Bridge which reads and writes metadata to videos. So one workaround is to use Bridge to add metadata before importing the video into LR.

In LR itself all Adobe do is store metadata in the catalogue, and they don't apply metadata to the derivatives exported from LR. It only reads metadata in videos when they are first imported.

That why I wrote my Video Metadata plugin to read/save metadata from video files, and apply it to derivatives upon export.

So will your plug in work with metadata changes made in lightroom classic and then exported ?

 

[johnbeardy]

Yes, that's the idea. I mainly shoot stills but use LR to manage videos shot with the same camera or on the phone, so pictures and videos from the same event will have similar keywords, descriptions, titles etc. The plugin lets you save the metadata to the videos, and I can then read the description or other fields in Premiere Pro or in Bridge.

 

[Gnits]

Well done. I do not shoot video.. but I know lots who do…or are experimenting.

Regularly… I hear of people who lose their video content completely.. mainly from lack of understanding of where/ how video is stored on their SD card.

But I will note this thread… as I am sure I will encounter requests for this and point them towards your plugin.

 

[johnbeardy]

For a stil photographer, video is a whole set of other problems - and that's before you also think about sound.

 

[alancos]

Yes, that's the idea. I mainly shoot stills but use LR to manage videos shot with the same camera or on the phone, so pictures and videos from the same event will have similar keywords, descriptions, titles etc. The plugin lets you save the metadata to the videos, and I can then read the description or other fields in Premiere Pro or in Bridge.

.... and is your plug in available to purchase ;-)

 

[clee01l]

.... and is your plug in available to purchase ;-)

http://lightroomsolutions.com/plug-ins/jb-video-metadata/

 

[John R Ellis]

Unlike Still Photography, there are no accepted standards for Video Metadata.

While that's commonly stated, there are in fact industry standards for video metadata, and the overall metadata situation isn't much different than for images.

The container formats (Quicktime, MPEG-2 and -4, etc.) have well-defined standards that include fields for cameras to record their exposure information, resolution, compression, GPS location, capture date, etc. LR reads these fields into the catalog and displays them just as it does for images.

For descriptive metadata typically added post-capture (such as all the editable fields you see in LR's Metadata panel, including rating, captions, keywords, author, location) the XMP standard (an ISO standard for many years) allows XMP metadata to be embedded in ASF, AVI, FLV, MOV, MP3, MPEG-2/4, SWF, WAV, AVCHD, P2, Sony HDV, XDCAM EX/FAM/SAM and probably more now.

Bridge writes this metadata into the XMP section in videos following the ISO standard, and there's no technical reason why LR couldn't either.

 

[johnbeardy]

accepted

That's the key word, and as with beauty, acceptance is in the eye of the beholder. Different apps make different assumptions about where to read metadata from - despite xmp having been around for two decades. Premiere Pro does things properly, but I couldn't say that for every other editor that pops up (every so often I get a series of questions about some video editor that I've never previously heard of). Explorer and Finder have their own ways, and folk do want to see metadata there too.

Bridge writes this metadata into the XMP section in videos following the ISO standard, and there's no technical reason why LR couldn't either.

Bridge always did, and does again now, but went through a couple of recent versions when it didn't. But I agree there's no technical of Adobe policy reason why Lightroom couldn't, and the plugin may be evidence of my despair on this front.

Users also have to think why they want to save metadata back to video files. It can't be for backup, unless you're happy backing up the volume of data. For me it's got to be about exchanging metadata with other apps.

The plugin url is in my signature, and I recommend testing the version 3 beta (limited to 5 items in trial mode).

 

[John R Ellis]

Descriptive (post-capture) photo metadata hardly has standards that are widely accepted across the myriad apps, utilities, and cloud services.

There are three primary standards for representing descriptive photo metadata, IPTC IIM, XMP, and the Metadata Working Group Guidelines. Their adoption by both major photo apps and minor utilities is quite ragged.

For example, IPTC IIM, which predates EXIF, has been superseded by IPTC Core stored in XMP, but it still widely used, and there are still many apps and cloud services that implement IPTC IIM but not XMP. But Lightroom Desktop, Mac Finder, Preview, and Photos don't implement IPTC IIM for JPEGs, though Windows File Explorer and Photos do.

And of those apps and services implementing XMP, most don't follow the Metadata Working Group Guidelines, though LR Classic, Bridge, and Exiftool do (haven't tested LR Desktop or Photoshop).