[Devon Gam]

Hi All,
I really feel your frustration about the date and time issue that grips us all in the forums. It is most frustrating that all cameras released today fail to come with software that emulates the camera’s capabilities itself; IE having the ability to display or not the date and time the video was recorded.

I feel that there should be either one of two solutions that I hope the Manufacturers will READ and ACT upon.

1. It should be a simple feature of any and all PC based video player programs to identify the date and time video Metadata Information recorded when the video was originally captured and then act in the same way the video camera does in playback mode with an ability in way of a checkbox in the options menu to turn on or off the overlay data display. This will give the viewer the choice to view or not view. For those who provide the video to a client and want or need the video displayed with date and time visible then free issue of the video player software with the disk could be an easy option.
2. If the first point is not the simplest feature then the second option would involve rendering the metadata information onto the video to permanently embed the information at a position on the picture of the users’ choice.

Video is captured in various media types and also in different file formats. A one stop shop software program that could cope with not only 1 avi file format or 1 mpeg file format but all versions of file would make millions $$$$$.

I recently purchased a Panasonic SDR-S26 which captures video onto a SD card. The camera will display, only once chosen in the camera menu system, the date and time on the flip-out screen and will display onto a monitor through the AV-out RCA cables. This is great to make a DVD of that video through an analogue capture card if loss of original video quality is not a real big issue.

A test I did to identify if the metadata was included in the file was;
I captured 2 minutes of video onto the SD card which created the following folder and file structure;
1 SD-Video/MGR_INFO/ and PRG001/
2 inside MGR_DATA (no extension), PRG_MGR (no extension)
3 inside PRG001/ was MOV001(mpeg file no extension but is MOD format), MOV001(MOI file no extension), PRG001.PGI, play from SD card on PC – no date and time but no surprise there. I burnt the entire SD_Video folder with all files inside with Nero as a Data DVD burn, transferred the disk to another PC and the file played OK but no date and time displayed. I then transferred the entire SD_Video to another SD card, put it back in the camera and played the video onto the screen with date and time displayed.

My conclusion is that the metadata is included in one of the files that is recognised by the camera and the hardware with the software on the camera identifies this data and generates it as an analogue overlay on the video picture.

The camera also can connect to a Panasonic VW-BN1 (DVD burner). I connected the DVD burner to the camera via the supplied USB cable. The camera recognised the DVD burner connected and on the screed displayed Burn Disk or Play Disk. From the second SD card with the data copied to, I burnt the data to the DVD with the intuitive menu functions. From the burnt disk I played on my PC (without date and time displayed). I then put the disk back into the Panasonic DVD burner and the camera offered me to play the disk……. I chose “Yes” and here is the video now with date and time displayed….. Go figure.

Ashley and Martin “hair replacement program” ….. here I COME.

I post this in the hope that some nice camera manufacture technician will have a read it, grow a heart do some work and make our lives a little better.

DevonG