Premiere Sort by Creation Date Metadata Issue/Not reading Metadata Correctly ✅

[TheBreeze21]

Premiere is not reading the correct "creation date" metadata on certain video files (in this example, GoPro hero 9 & A7siii videos, even when it shows the correct date/time created in finder on a Mac). It's useful to sort by creation date so you can see all footage in chronological order (regardless of the camera used).

How to reproduce: 

1. On a Mac computer, download the zip file with video files from Google Drive link. Double-click on the zip file to extract video files.
2. Open the extracted folder. If you don’t see the date created, right-click on the menu and select “date created”.
3. In Finder Click on date created to sort by date created. You will see that file name C6435.MP4 (A7siii)  was created on March 17th at 11:39 AM. IMG_8379 (iPhone video) was created on March 17th at 2:12 PM and GX012955 (GoPro Hero9)  was created on March 17th at 2:24 PM.
   4. In Premiere, open and create a new project and Import the video files you downloaded from Drive into Premiere. In the bin where the files are located, Right-click the menu in list view and select metadata display. Search for and choose “Creation date” and “Date Time Digitized”. Click OK and sort by date created. 

5. Review if the metadata creation date matches what finder on Mac shows. It doesn’t display correctly compared to the finder creation date metadata. Sort by “Creation Date” and notice that file C6435 now has an incorrect metadata date/time of March 17th at 12:38 PM, IMG_8379 shows the correct date/time of 2:12 PM and GX012955 now shows an incorrect creation date as 10:23 AM instead of 2:24 PM. Date Time Digitized and Creation Date seem to have the same metadata.

The way it should work is to sort all video files by the date/time created and have them listed in order of date/time created chronologically. Also, ensure they are not grouped by the device (unless specified). If I add, iPhone, GoPro, and A7siii videos in a bin and choose “creation date”, it should list them all chronologically based on date/time.  

Mac M1 Max (Ventura 13.2.1)

Premiere Pro 23.2.0

Sony A7siii 422 10 bit

Gopro Hero 9

Gopro Hero 11

You can also watch this video to see how the metadata is being displayed correctly in Davinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro allowing you to sort by date/time created. Premiere currently is changing metadata on import which does not give me the ability to accurately sort by creation date. 

[mattchristensen]

The issue here seems to be a discrepency between two different metadata encodings in each of these files. MediaInfo is an open source tool for viewing metadata inside video files, and below is a screenshot of the excellent Invisor app on Mac, which uses MediaInfo but allows you to load multiple files for easy comparison.

Take note of the "File > Created" and "Container > Encoded date" fields, highlighted in this screenshot for the three files in question:

The Created field is in an implied time zone, whereas the Encoded date uses UTC. Using UTC allows for applications that make use of the time metadata to interpolate it to the user's local time zone, as any time zone is represented as an offset from UTC.

When Premiere Pro is displaying Creation Date in the Project panel for these files, it is reading the UTC time out of the Encoded date field and then translating it to my system time. My system is on US East Coast time which is UTC-4, so what was 16:38:34 (4:38pm) in UTC is translated backwards 4 hours to 12:38:34. Finder and Resolve appear to be using the Created field instead.

There are tradeoffs to using either field. Asking the file system for the creation date is faster, as the file doesn't have to be imported or parsed in any way. But it's pretty common for the fileystem's creation date to accidentally be reset as files are copied around. The Encoded date embedded in the video's metadata is less likely to be modified, but is slower to read because it requires actually parsing the file.

Below is a table of the various time zones encoded in the file metadata and what Premiere Pro, Finder, and Resolve report. Premiere Pro is consistent in using the Encoded date UTC and subtracting 4 hours to my UTC-4 system time. Note also how these files are (I presume) from three different cameras and each encodes their Created and Encoded date a little differently:

• The first clip (C6435.MP4) encoded a 4 hour, 59 minute, 11 second difference between the two times
• The second clip (GX012955.MP4) encoded a 1 minute, 14 second difference
• The final clip (IMG_8379.MOV) encoded a 4 hour difference betweent the two times, and a QuickTime specific third metadata entry for creation date, likely due to being MOV rather than MP4

I hope that helps,

Matt

[TheBreeze21]

@mattchristensen , This was very helpful in understanding what is going on. Thank you so much for the response! Would it be a difficult task to change the name of metadata display in Premiere of "creation date" to "encoded date" (since that is truly what it is) and add a metadata display field "date creation" or "creation date" that reads the files similar to FCPx and Davince read it so I could sort it as needed? Or if that could cause issues, is there any way you guys could create another metadata display field in Premiere that would give users the option to sort by this creation date like Davinci and FCPx. You could even reverse the words and call this field "date creation".

If this would be a difficult task to program a metadata field to read and sort like Davinci or FCPx, I can always look into using a tool like Exiftool for Mac to try to rewrite the creation date metadata field as the file name or something similar. But, it would be really cool if you guys could add a metadata display field in Premiere to have the same behavior! Thanks again for all you do and taking the time to look at this and get back to me 🙂 Ben

[mattchristensen]

@TheBreeze21 anything's possible, but adding another creation date column leaves room for even more confusion, potentially. I totally understand how at first it looked like Premiere Pro was doing something strange with the times, and why you were comparing them to Finder and other places and expecting them to match.

But now that you know where Premiere Pro's data is coming from, I'm curious to learn more about your workflow and why you still want it to match with Finder and others. If your main concern is that the files are being sorted inside Premiere Pro chronologically, they are, according to that Encoded date metadata field. Is there some reason you need specifically the order you see in Finder?

[TheBreeze21]

Here is the workflow I'm currently trying to accomplish, this will help clear things up on what I'm trying to accomlish.  https://share.getcloudapp.com/5zujdPpp

In my workflow, if I can put all files from all three cameras (Gopro, iPhone, A7siii) into a bin and sort it by the date created (from finder, even understanding this could change at some point). It will allow me to sort by the right order of when I filmed the videos so I can put them on the timeline in chronological order of the date/time it actually filmed. Currently in Premiere, using the date encoded isn't achieving the correct sorting in the order I actually took the video. I understand now how everything works and how date encoded works now, but in the end, it's not displaying the right sort order I need in Premiere like Davinci and FCPx is by going off of the creation date in finder. 

It would be really great to have the metadata display option in Premiere to be able to sort by the date created (to match and sort by date created in finder) not date encoded. This would give me the result needed to see all the footage in chronological order of when I filmed it. 

If it can sort by the finder date created in Premiere, it will show up in the order I actually took the footage. The date encoded isn't giving me the right chronological sort order of when the video was created with these cameras.  

[walkerbuzzbell]

I have not had the need for the metadata issues but how can this  VIEW BY DATE NOT be a foundaitonal issue? I posted this exact request 4 years ago  in UserVoice and there too it got no traction.

Ok If there are any editors who are also devleopers of Premiere - create a timeline - name it dave. 5 days later you create ANOTHER timeline named dave. Why? who knows buy youre right - i should not even be able to HAVE the same name - but if i do like i just did...and i re poen that project a week or month or year from now - which 'dave' is the right timeline?  To me whats foundataional is anything the OS has taught us to do like something SO simple as VIEW BY DATE/MODIFIED etc....CAN'T be 'that hard. It has bugged me since i moved to Prmiere and now that we grade - and i do painfully edit a bit in Resolve...why can they do it and not Adobe?  Thx as always. 

[mattchristensen]

@walkerbuzzbell You're absolutely right – create/modifed date for sequences would be very helpful. I've made sure the right team has seen your comment to help us prioritize it.

In this specific case while it seems easy to "just" add it, it's unfortunately not a trivial thing to add in Premiere Pro's existing metadata display. That's not to say we won't - I'm just saying we have looked at it and it's not trivial. Thanks.