EXIF Tag Documentation

THETA Media
1

Hello! I’m trying to find some documentation on the tag values found in the Theta Z1 cameras when running exiftool. For example:

danielchristensen@daniels-macbook Downloads % exiftool R0010239.MP4|grep Date
File Modification Date/Time     : 2023:09:15 10:18:36-04:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2023:09:15 10:18:38-04:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2023:09:15 10:34:43-04:00
Track Create Date               : 2023:09:13 17:19:04
Track Modify Date               : 2023:09:13 17:19:04
Media Create Date               : 0000:00:00 00:00:00
Media Modify Date               : 0000:00:00 00:00:00
Modify Date                     : 2023:09:13 13:15:58
Date/Time Original              : 2023:09:13 13:15:58
Create Date                     : 2023:09:13 13:15:58
Content Create Date             : 2023:09:13 13:19:05-04:00

Where should I go to find the definitions for these tags, and determine their differences?

2

I do not believe the metatag data is published.

You can try opening an issue here:

Can you advise which metadata tags you need?

3

At the moment I’m just interested in the difference between all these date fields in my code snippet above; But generally, I’d be very interested in some sort of index for these tags.

I can follow up on Github

4

Ok. I’ll also ask some people I know at RICOH.

5

Information below is from GitHub ref

begin information from GitHub from community developer

Actually, RICOH is not familiar with how exiftool parses each tags and calculate each Date/Time information. But I did same test with Theta Z1 ver 3.10.2 and exiftool ver 10.78 on Windows machine.

File Modification Date/Time     : 2023:09:18 10:25:47+09:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2023:09:18 10:28:27+09:00
File Creation Date/Time         : 2023:09:18 10:26:44+09:00
Track Create Date               : 2023:09:18 01:25:47
Track Modify Date               : 2023:09:18 01:25:47
Media Create Date               : 2023:09:18 01:25:47
Media Modify Date               : 2023:09:18 01:25:47
Modify Date                     : 2023:09:18 10:25:38
Date/Time Original              : 2023:09:18 10:25:38
Create Date                     : 2023:09:18 10:25:38

My guess is following.

Track Create Date               : 2023:09:18 01:25:47
Track Modify Date               : 2023:09:18 01:25:47

These metadata seem be parsed from moov → trak → tkhd → CreationTime and ModificationTime stored in MP4 file. THETA Z1 stores these metadata as the timestamp at the end of video recording, and as UTC (coordinated universal time) format.
You can refer to QuickTime File Format provided by Apple as well.

Media Create Date               : 2023:09:18 01:25:47
Media Modify Date               : 2023:09:18 01:25:47

Also, I guess these metadata seem be parsed from moov → trak → mdia → mdhd → CreationTime and ModificationTime stored in MP4 file. Normally THETA Z1 stores to this metadata same values as tkhd , but I am not sure at this time why yours are all zero in the result.

By the way, In my simple test, Track Create/Modify Date looks be parsed from video track, but Media Create/Modify Date looks be parsed from audio trak. I don’t know why exiftool works like this.

Modify Date                     : 2023:09:18 10:25:38
Create Date                     : 2023:09:18 10:25:38

I guess that exiftool seems calculate these timestamp as at the start of video recording, with using duration (=the length of video recording) information.

File Modification Date/Time     : 2023:09:18 10:25:47+09:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2023:09:18 10:28:27+09:00
File Creation Date/Time         : 2023:09:18 10:26:44+09:00

I guess that they looks be related the timestamp at the last modification / at the last accessing / at the copying MP4 files at PC side.

I don’t have information for other tags Create Date and Content Create Date now.

6

This is great info, thank you!

I’m surprised to find that exiftool isn’t giving me the atom info directly. That is disappointing. I can move forward using moov → trak → tkhd → CreationTime and ModificationTime as the source of truth for what I’m working on, so that’s great.

Is there any documentation on the various pieces of metadata that Theta Z1 would be storing on the video file? I can probably investigate and infer, but I’m hoping there’s some index that I can refer to.

7

You may be able to get the info you’re looking for with exiftool options such as

exiftool -ee -V3

alternately, there are other metadata tools such as AtomicParsley

I’ll investigate if there is a specification for the video file metadata that the Z1 follows.

8

RICOH posted an added comment. Probably you’ve see it added to the Issue, but I’m posting to this thread, just to make sure all the information is included here.

I corrected my previous comment.

Content Create Date             : 2023:09:18 10:25:47+09:00

This metadata seem be parsed from moov → udta → @day. Only this metadata contains timezone information in MP4 file. By the way, I verified that the latest exiftool (ver 12.65) can parse this.

Best regards, Daisuke Hohjoh

1 Like
9

The RICOH engineers just merged some information.