P: Video capture time shifted by time zone offset

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I recently got a 5D IV and just noticed that capture times on video files shows 5 hours ahead in Lightroom (photos are fine). This causes videos taken late in the day to be imported into the folder for the next day. I'm running the latest Lightroom (6.10) and 5D Firmware (1.04). I checked my old 5D Mark III videos and they are fine. 

I suspect Lightroom ins't picking up the timezone info and is using UTC time.  Is this a bug?

[John R Ellis]

See this post for the mess with industry standards that's the underlying cause:
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/canon-5d-mark-iv-video-capture-time-incorrect...

Adobe recognizes the iPhone in particular and handles it specially. It could do the same for other camera models, but it requires LR to read camera-specific metadata, and Adobe appears to have a very conservative legal approach to manufacturer-specific metadata, requiring legal agreements before incorporating such metadata in Adobe products. 

[erol diener]

Hello everyone. I just noticed that all my imported .mov movies from my new Z50, have a wrong capture time. The capture time of all my videos is exactly 1h behind. E.g. 01:23:14 PM instead 02:23:14 PM. The time zone and time settings in my Z50 are ok. Date, time and time zone are correct. Summer time is on.

If I check the time directly on the back of my Z50 or on the SD card with ViewNX from Nikon, the capture time is correct.

It seems that Lightroom has an issue with the capture time of videos from the Nikon Z50.

Can anyone reproduce this with his/her Z50?

Thanks a lot 🙂
It's quite annoying

[alex.furer]

Just a hunch, but  your camera might be in a different timezone, or has "wrong" daylight saving settings.

Oups, just read the whole thing. Fell into the headline reading trap. Sorry!

[MartinBergundTal]

Hi,

same here. Capture time of Raw images is correct but for movies 2h ahead, e.g. 8:42 instead of 10:42.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Does Nikon's software show the correct time or is it also shifted by two hours?

[MartinBergundTal]

No idea. But on the camera display, it is shown correctly. 

[John R Ellis]

See this post above for details about what's going on:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-video-capture-time-shifted-...

[erol diener]

@Deleted User

If I check the time directly on the back of my Z50 or on the SD card with ViewNX from Nikon, the capture time is correct.

@John_R_Ellis

Not sure if I get this correct. We have to deal with it because Nikon does not follow a mp4 standard? Just did a test with both video formats I can switch between. mov and mp4. Same issue in LR with both. 

All is fine as usual with Nikon SW, just LR does not show the time correct anymore.

[erol diener]

Just did another test by setting the time zone in my z50 to UTC 0. Same result. Video (.mov or .mp4) are -1 hour compared to a raw file captured a few seconds after the video.

I don't get it...

[John R Ellis]

"We have to deal with it because Nikon does not follow a mp4 standard?"

It's more complicated -- it appears that Nikon is following the standard,  whereas most cameras don't. Details:

The QuickTime standard, which was poorly written, calls for capture time to be recorded in UTC and doesn't provide a standard field to record time zone. But cameras without GPS often don't know the time zone, so most such cameras record local time (whatever the camera clock is set to).  Given that reality, by default LR interprets the capture time as recorded in local time (contrary to the standard).

But some cameras, especially smart phones with GPS, know their time zone, and they record UTC in the capture-time field (obeying the de jure standard) and record the time zone in a manufacturer-specific field. It would be straightforward for LR to read those manufacturer-specific fields (it does it for raws, after all). 

However, comments in this forum by Adobe employees indicate that Adobe considers such fields "proprietary" and won't access them without contractual permission from the manufacturers.  Getting such permission is tedious, time consuming, and expensive, since it involves the legal departments of multiple large companies. It appears that this hasn't become a priority for Adobe or the camera manufacturers.

Adobe did get permission for Apple iPhones, and thus LR reads the capture time correctly for iPhone videos. An Adobe employee indicated they'd do it for Canon cameras, but I'm not sure that was ever completed.

It sounds like the Nikon Z 50 is following the standard and recording UTC time in the capture-time field and may be recording the time zone in another field. But since Adobe likely hasn't made a special exception for the cameras (as they have for iPhones) and obtained contractual permission from Nikon, LR is interpreting that UTC field as local time.

This issue doesn't arise with photos, since every manufacturer interpreted the EXIF standard to mean that local time should be recorded in the standard field EXIF:DateTimeOriginal.

[erol diener]

@John_R_Ellis

Thank you so much. I appreciate that you took the time to explain this topic/issue in such detail.  So I will probably have to get used to correct the recording time in LR manually by +/-x hours. At least, now I know the reason 🙂 Thanks.

[John R Ellis]

We can hope that this becomes a higher priority for the LR team as more popular cameras start obeying the QuickTime standard.

[erol diener]

That would be great. Let's hope...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This is incredible: this is a 5 year old bug!! And Adobe does not care!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

• When importing photos with LR-classic the capture time is correct, of course. Even the in camera rating of photos is imported into Lightroom Classic.
• When importing videos with LR-classic the capture time is wrong (- 2 hours)! Furthermore the in camera rating of videos is not imported into Lightroom Classic.
  These simple metadata import problems are reproducible with MP4-videos shot with Nikon Z7. Maybe this is related to specific camera models.

Lightroom Classic Version 10.0

Nikon Z7 Firmware Version 3.12

[John R Ellis]

Why conversations get merged: https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga...

[John R Ellis]

Martin, see this reply above for what's going on: 

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-classic-video-capture-time-... 

Re the in-camera star ratings, please post that as a separate thread.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The time stamp on my .mov files from my Nikon Z6 ii are being rewritten upon import, I assume to match UTC 0. I have looked in forums and it seems the easiest thing to do is just change my camera's time zone to London. I don't really need help since I don't collaborate across time zones, but I hope this will be addressed in future updates. Metadata of video and photo files are accurate in the camera  and then upon upload, photos retain accurate metadata and videos are converted to London time (from LA time). This means they are not synched up and often in the following day's folder with the major time difference. It also means they are not synched with my other camera files which makes creating a chronological timeline difficult. In my mac's Finder, it seems they are timestamped with the correct metadata (date modified). It is only in Lightroom that this seems to be an issue. 

[John R Ellis]

This is caused by a poorly written Quicktime specification, which requires that capture times be recorded in UTC but doesn't provide a standard location for recording time zone.  See here for details why LR interacts badly with this:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-classic-video-capture-time-... 

[John R Ellis]

Why conversations get merged:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

updating status

[yashg]

I am still experiencing the same bug in Lightroom Classic v11.1 today with .MP4 video files shot yesterday on my Nikon Z5

[iltb2000]

I am also experiencing the same time zone offset problem when importing photos from a Sony RX100VII camera.  I am using Lightroom 11.2 on a MacBook Pro M1 Max with MacOS Monterey 12.3.

[yashg]

I have just switched to importing all the videos into photos app on my Mac. It somehow manages to keep the correct time.

[touheyphoto]

The short: video assets are approx 4 hrs offset from actual time in LR Classic. Issue persists with multiple cameras and on multiple computers. Issue does not affect photos, only video. 

The long: I noticed in the last few months that video files have been ending up at the tail end of each days collection when they should be mixed in with the photos. Then I noticed the timestamps were wrong -- about 4 or so hours off. Not exactly 4 hrs but wondering if the length of the clip may account for that since they're about 3 or 4 minutes off from being exactly 4 hrs with 3 or 4 minute length clips. About 4 hrs 1 minute off for 30 second clips, etc. 

I noticed this issue persists with multiple cameras, including my iphone and in LR Classic on my Mac Studio and MBP.

See attached images for LR timestamp vs. the correct timestamp shown in Finder. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated since this is leading to other issues!