insta360 (and Go Pro?) export, timestamps getting mangled

[venbox]

I have an insta360 Ace Pro with dive housing which I’m really happy with in terms of image quality, interface etc.

However, I’m having a frustrating experience exporting and managing media. When using the insta360 desktop app to export (which is necesary to add the camera-specific underwater filters etc), the exif metadata gets wiped out so each media file defauls to the time it was exported; sometimes days later than it was taken. This makes a mess of things when subsequently importing into Apple photos which is where I keep everything alongside media taken on my iPhone, as everything is out of date order.

I’ve been resorting to manually re-adding exif data based on the file name (which contains the timestamp it was taken by the camera) and have somewhat automated this with simple scripts, but it doesn’t capture time zone information, and video and photo metadata have to be updated differently. It’s a giant pain in the ass for results that are still compromised.

Has anyone else come across this challenge and found any suitable workflow? I assume Go Pro has the same issue but would be very interested to hear if it’s managed better.

It’s frustrating enough I’m considering trying other cameras to see if there is any improvement!

 

[lairdb]

This is a huge mess, compounded by manufacturers who take varying approaches. At the heart of it, imo, is that (iirc), jpeg (and similar) metadata includes time zone, but mp4 does not.

Depending on the camera and photo-management app designer choices, it all goes horribly wrong from there. For example, the iOS Photos app has nice time adjustment tools — but they don’t rewrite the metadata; the adjustment is made in Apple’s photo data. Etc. similar misguided choices by Canon, GoPro, and Nikon in my personal experience, and (as you point out, others.)

All this is to say that you will likely have to develop your own workflow, specific to your particular tool chain. One practice that I have taken, that may be helpful, is at the beginning of a trip to take a still photo and a brief video of the time and date screen on my phone. Later on, this allows me to reconcile actual date and time with metadata to begin the reconstruction.