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iPhone movies showing incorrect time stamps in iPhoto?

I imported about 700 photos/movies taken with the iPhone 4S into iPhoto, taken over the course of a 16-day trip.


The movies have incorrect time stamps, and are thus sorted out of order according to their file numbers (ie, a movie with the filename IMG_1000 shows up between IMG_0932 and IMG_0933 when the files are sorted by date/time). So somehow the time stamp generated by the phone is incorrect, or iPhoto is reading the data wrong.


I appears that the videos have the right day, but are somehow randomly grouped towards the beginning of each day, so the times are wrong.


Any thoughts about this? Am I missing something?


Thanks in advance...


iPhoto 9.2.1 ('11), in Lion 10.7.4

Posted on Jun 8, 2012 4:50 PM

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Aug 9, 2012 8:40 AM in response to KevinGarnett

I've been seeing this behavior as well. The iPhone movies AND screen shots are showing the correct time for the Central Time Zone (where I live) even though they may have been shot while in another time zone. Normal pictures taken with the iPhone show a date stamp that reflects the local time where the pictures were taken.


This may be an iPnone issue not an iPhoto problem. I'm using iOS 5.0.1 on an iPhone 4...

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Dec 25, 2012 5:06 AM in response to KevinGarnett

I have the same issue, with both iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 running iOS 6.0.1.


When I go to a different time zone and change the zone on my iPhone, the pictures will have a correct time stamp of the local time while both movies and screenshots show the original time of the country of origin.


Very frustrating when merging the pictures/videos with other cameras or friends, since all the videos and screenshots taken with my iPhone(s) have a wrong time stamp and are therefore in a wrong order.


Does anybody have a solution for this problem?


Thanks.

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Jan 3, 2013 2:14 PM in response to LarryHN

All due respect, how do you know it's an iPhone issue and not an iPhoto issue? And if you do know something specific like that, would you mind sharing?


As far as I know, this is a bug. Either iPhoto is misreading date/time stamps, or the iPhone is stamping them wrong. How do you know which one is true?

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Jan 3, 2013 3:12 PM in response to KevinGarnett

Video files do not contain the EXIF Capture Date field that photos from a digital camera conmtain which iPhoto uses for dating. Therefore iPhoto uses the file creation date. Now if that date is off then the problem lies with the app or device that created the file originally and added the date.


Have you tried the Photos ➙ Batch Change ➙ Date menu option on the videos to change the date to what you need.

all the videos and screenshots taken with my iPhone(s) have a wrong time stamp

The iPhone is putting the time stamp on the screenshots and videos at the time they were made. iPhoto has nothing to do with it. That's why you should ask in the iPhone community to see if there's a fix.

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Jan 3, 2013 4:09 PM in response to Old Toad

Thanks for your help!


In my case (I started the thread), the time on the device was correct, but the time stamps for videos did not match the time stamps for photos taken at the same time (within minutes). As I said, the videos' time stamps were clumped together at the beginning of the day on which they were shot.


iPhoto works fine to change the date/time stamps, I was looking for a way to avoid the problem rather than have to sort through photos and videos that number in the hundreds in order to put video and photos of the same thing next to each other in the library. It sounds like there is no way to do that.


As I said above, the fact that the videos' time stamps didn't agree with the photos shot at the same time and place tells me that it is not an issue with the iPhone's time or date, which was correct (because it worked for the photos).


Therefore iPhoto uses the file creation date.


This is clearly not always the case, because the video files' creation dates would then match the file creation dates of the photos, which they did not.


Unless the iPhone is creating videos with an incorrect time, but I haven't found any reference to that happening. (And I know, at this point the iPhoto experts will say "Go ask an iPhone expert," and the iPhone experts will say "Go ask an iPhoto expert," but that advice is not as helpful.)

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Jan 4, 2013 10:24 AM in response to KevinGarnett

I just ran another test and the iPhone video I took imported with the correct date.


Should have suggested this initially: launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and create a new, test library. Import some videos from your iPhone and check to see if the same problem persists. If it doesn't then your current library is the culprit.


If it does try another test: log into another user account on your Mac and import the videos into a library there. Report back with the resutls.

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Jan 4, 2013 11:23 AM in response to Old Toad

Could it be that the iPhone uses UTC rather than local time for file creation dates? If this is so then iPhoto would have NO way of knowing what the local time zone was at the time the video file was created. So it just calculates the time based on the UTC file timestamp and the local offset in use on the Mac at the time of importation.


Yes? No?


This would explain the behavior I consistently experience...

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Jun 28, 2013 10:16 AM in response to LBSGuy

This sounds plausible, as it would appear to explain the behavior. I just came back from another trip out of my home time zone and had the exact same issue with every video. At this point I just know it's coming, so I correct the videos' information in iPhoto. It's a little annoying, but not a big deal. Thanks for the thoughts.

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iPhone movies showing incorrect time stamps in iPhoto?

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