GA Hiker

I just returned from Switzerland where I took about 1000 photos and videos which I have transferred to my Windows 10 PC. Since my husband also took photos, with a different camera, I am thinking about how I will merge them. My plan is to put both our photos/videos into a single folder (assuming no duplicate file names), sort them by date/time, and rename them in that order with a sequence number appended. (I'm not yet sure what renaming method/utility I will use for that.) BUT... I just noticed that all of my video files (.mp4) have a time stamp that is 4 hours earlier than the photo files (.jpg) taken immediately before and after. Note that Switzerland is 6 hours earlier than Eastern time, where I am, so it's not that the camera assigned Home time to videos instead of Destination time (which would not be okay either). Does anyone have any idea how/why this could have happened? I hate to think that I will have this issue going forward for as long as I have this camera! Any easy suggestions of how to correct the times short of changing each one manually?

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

Some cameras have another little battery to "remember" settings without the main battery. These only last a few years. Your camera could keep settings with a dead clock battery for a while- but not too long. and keeping a charged main battery inserted could disguise this. Caveat: check the package for dates- I have bought brand new 5+ year old batteries before.
Some cameras do this with a capacitor. A dead and/or missing battery means your camera could lose/ change settings over not-much time.
There are many "exif" editing programs out there, and many can do batch modes.

grathbun Loc: Placerville, California

I just went through my ZS60's motion picture menu and can't find an option to put a time stamp on the video itself, so I'm assuming you're referring to the time stamp of the file on your computer.

One thing I can think of that might cause that problem is a disparity between the camera's time and the computer's time. It also could depend on how you transferred your files from the camera to the computer: i.e., did you use a file manager to just copy them from the camera's memory card to a directory on your computer, or did you use a photo management program that does more than just copying, maybe doing something different to photos than to videos? You didn't say which time was the correct one, the photo time or the video time; knowing that might give you another clue.

Since I use Linux instead of Windows, I'm kind of shooting in the dark here, but maybe this will give you some things to look at.

GA Hiker

Working on this, I discovered the following: When I look at the Properties/Details of the .mp4 file on the SD memory card, it has 2 date/times -- Date Modified and Date Created, both of which are correct. When I look at the Properties/Details of the same .mp4 file after I have copied it into a folder on my PC, it has an additional date/time field -- Media Created. This field is, incorrectly, 4 hours earlier than the other two. Unfortunately, Windows Explorer displays this Media Created date/time in its Date field thus making it impossible for me to correctly sort my files by date/time. Even worse, Windows Explorer allows me to change the date of Media Created but NOT the time! Is this time discrepancy being caused by the camera or Windows? Is there a way to change the Media Created time?

GA Hiker

As I explained in my second message, there are 2 times for both the photo and video files on the camera memory card, and all those times are correct. When I copy and paste the photos from the memory card to a folder on my PC those times do not change but the video files "acquire" a Media Created date/time which is 4 hours earlier than the other 2 times for that video (which remain unchanged). And that 4-hour-earlier time is the one that Windows Explorer uses when files are sorted by date/time. Ugh!

grathbun Loc: Placerville, California

I do have Windows 10 on a dual-boot laptop, so booted that up and did some checking. My ZS60's MP4 files only have two of the dates you referred to: "Date created" and "Date modified"; the "Media created" field is blank. You didn't say how you transferred your files from the camera to the computer, so I'm wondering if the software you used to do the transfer entered something in the "Media created" field at the time of the transfer, and there was a clock synchronization problem at the time. I transfer my photos by plugging the memory card into the computer (or into a USB card reader if the computer doesn't have a memory card reader) and using a file manager such as Windows Explorer to copy them over.

One other thing that *could* confuse the issue is if the computer is set to store the date internally as Greenwich Mean Time and translate that time to your local time zone. Earler versions of Windows haven't worked this way, but I'm not familiar enough with Windows 10 to know if it does. It's something you could check, both in your Windows settings, and in your computer's BIOS/UEFI settings.

One other thing to check is your settings in the camera for both local and destination time zones, and if you have programmed travel dates into the camera to tell it when to switch zones; make sure those are all correct.

In Windows Explorer, you can have the files sorted by any field, so, as a workaround until you find the real problem, if you sort your photos and videos directory (folder) by Date created , the files would be in correct order.

Since Windows isn't my usual OS, and I change my camera time manually rather than using different local/destination times, I'm kind of shooting in the dark here, but you might want to check the above things. Good luck.

GA Hiker

grathbun, Thank you so much for your reply! I transferred my files from the camera to the computer by inserting the camera's SD memory card into a slot for that purpose on my Dell desktop computer. I then used Copy/Paste within Windows Explorer to copy them to a folder on my PC. It seems like we virtually used the same procedure so it's strange that my Media Created field was populated and yours was not.

I don't know how to check about Greenwich Mean Time, etc. Will have to do some research on that.

My camera destination time is 5 hours different from my local time, not 4. (It should have been 6, but that is another issue.) That was the first thing I looked at. If it were 4 I would have thought my problem was caused by that time somehow being incorrectly used.

BIG THANK YOU: I did not realize that in Windows Explorer I could sort by all those different date fields! I was just "sorting" by clicking on the one Date field that is displayed, whatever that is. Date Created would not work as that is the date the photos were transferred to the computer. So I sorted by Date Taken -- all the .MP4s listed first, then the .JPGs, certainly not what I wanted. Turns out that the .MP4s do not have a Date Taken; they have that Media Created Date that the .JPGs do not have. UGH! Then I sorted by Date Modified, and that worked! The only problem with this is that I modified/edited 6 of the .JPGs after transferring them from the memory card. I will restore those (unedited) files from the memory card and hope all will go well from there.

Next issue: The whole purpose of sorting these files by a date/time rather than by name was to be able to merge my photos with my husband's, sorting by date/time and then renaming with sequential names. But, as I mentioned, I set my destination time incorrectly to 5 hours later rather than 6. If my husband's camera was set correctly, I will need to change the Date Modified time of my photos by an hour. Any suggestions on how to do that?

Thank you again.

grathbun Loc: Placerville, California

GA Hiker, you're very welcome! I threw a lot of things out there for you to try, and am glad that you had some success.

As far as bulk editing of the dates is concerned, I did a search in DuckDuckGo.com (a search engine like Google, except it doesn't track you; Google would probably give you similar results) using the term "program to edit Date Modified", and the first two links it found were these:
https://www.howtogeek.com/203154/how-to-change-created-or-modified-timestamps-for-files-and-folders/
https://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-change-the-last-modified-date-creation-date-and-last-accessed-date-for-files-and-folders/

I've used HowToGeek.com before and found them to be pretty reliable, so I think you could trust their advice, especially since the second link endorses the same program, Bulk File Changer. I didn't read all through either article, but at first glance it looks like it may help with your issue.

Also, as HarryO suggested, you may be able to get some satisfaction using an EXIF data editing program (I searched for "EXIF data editor" and got several hits.) I use a simple one in Linux, exiv2, but I don't think it will do bulk time changes, and I'm not even sure if it's available for Windows. There may be others that will do that, though -- something to have in your back pocket, anyway!

You're probably aware of this, but just be careful about what you download and run on your computer, so you don't get a program that contains adware or spyware or worse. You might want to look for reviews on any program you're considering downloading. On a related subject, if you don't already have something that guards against things like adware and spyware, check out MalwareBytes' AntiMalware program; I use it on my Android phone and used it on my work Windows computer before I retired, and it sometimes caught malware that the antivirus programs didn't catch! (If you're already aware of all this, sorry for the unneeded advice; I can't help it, I'm paranoid!)

Again, good luck with all this!

GA Hiker

Thank you again. I got excited about Bulk File Changer and downloaded it. But when I tried to use it I learned that it could not change the times I need to change, which are "Date Taken" in JPG files and "Media Created" in MP4 files.

grathbun Loc: Placerville, California

Too bad, it looked promising. The same programmer wrote many other utilities -- maybe one of them would do what you need. You might want to check his web site, NirSoft.com. I've found that people that write freeware are often helpful to folks that use, or would like to use, their software, so he might even be amenable to writing such a utility if he doesn't already have one. It couldn't hurt to ask! You might also search the HowToGeek web site -- they've got a lot of good tips. Be as specific as you can in your searches to narrow down the list of results to sort through.

Sorry that there doesn't just seem to be a magic solution to your problem (where's Harry Potter when you really need him?!) I'm afraid I've pretty well exhausted my store of ideas, but can answer general computer questions if needed. If I run across something that might help, I'll post another reply to this forum thread.

Here's wishing you luck!