Retain daten when exporting Videos from Photos and Import to FCP X

Hello dear community

I have an odd issue. The situation is this :

My main library for photos and videos is my apple Apple Photos library, synced on iCloud. I have both media shot on iPhone and media shot with other cameras that I import to Apple photos.

If I want to edit a video in final cut pro and use some footage from my Photos library, the exported video file doesn't contain a readable recording date when the video wasn't shot on iPhone. IMG_XYZY.mov of iPhones retain the recording date and are sorted accordingly in FCP X. Other camera media (DJI, Fujifilm, GoPro) get's a creation date stamped, FXP doesn't recognize the recording date and sorts it as of the creation date of the exported file.

However, if I reimport the file in an Apple Photos library, Photos recognizes the original recording date of said exported file – while FCP X doesn't.

How can I either export a video of a third party camera from Apple Photos in a way FCP X can recognize the original recording date?

How can I import a video of a third party camera exported from Apple Photos in a way that FCP X uses the original recording date?

Thank you and all the best

Félix :)

MacBook Pro 13″

Posted on Aug 12, 2023 9:08 AM

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★ Helpful

Matti Haveri

Level 6

13,959 points

Aug 12, 2023 9:49 AM in response to FFelyxorez

Describe your workflow in detail. How did you export from Photos.app?? Just dragging and dropping might lose some metadata and even pixel data so it is best to use File > Export > original...

Movie metadata is a mess and a moving target. The date an app decides to grab can usually be in the following tags that might differ. Photos.app grabs them in this order (Keys, UserData, QuickTime, FileCreateDate). To muddy waters even more, some apps use different logic for .mp4, .m4v and .mov.

exiftool -a -G1 -s -fileOrder5 FileName -api LargeFileSupport=1 -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -FileCreateDate -Time:All movie.mp4
[Keys]          CreationDate                    : 2004:04:04 12:04:04+02:00
[UserData]      DateTimeOriginal                : 2003:03:03 12:03:03+02:00
[QuickTime]     CreateDate                      : 2002:02:02 12:02:02+02:00
[MacOS]         FileCreateDate                  : 2001:01:01 12:01:01+02:00

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16 replies

fox_m

Level 6

12,015 points

Aug 15, 2023 10:12 AM in response to FFelyxorez

Seems like you've been going through a lot of trouble trying to work this issue out... Did you know that Date/Time breaks in vertical videos? (Positioning is nigh on impossible!)

How averse are you to adding your own dates to clips you've imported?

You see that Notes field in your Info browser? You could just type in the date in that field when the clip is selected in the Event Browser.

If you want to display that date you placed in Notes in your clips in the storyline — just let me know... I have a template for that...

Retain daten when exporting Videos from Photos and Import to FCP X