Metadata lost after import

[Vifa]

Hi,

Last night I imported all the videofiles from my GoPro Hero 5 to my external HDD.
I simply cut and pasted all the files from the camera's folder to my video folder on the HDD.

But afterwards I realized all the metadata had been overwriting with the date and time of import - instead of the original record data and time.



Unfortunately I cut and pasted the files, so I no longer have them on my camera.
What can I do to recreate the original meta data ?

.. and most important, does anyone have an idea of why this happened ?

[ndjamena]

The recording date might be stored in the files themselves, both MP4 and MKV keep the creation date in their headers... I think GoPro would use MP4, so if you look at the files using MediaInfo it might tell you the correct time...

As for why Windows didn't give the files the correct time... is it possible the camera simply didn't provide that information, so Windows gave it what was most convenient?

-edit- or possibly the copying process was non-standard, so the file was in essence being "re-created" in its new position.

[Vifa]

It is weird.
The date and time is right when viewed in the folder of the camera.
I just tried again with another video from the camera, it seems like it happens everytime.

Nevertheless, I was able to retrieve the date and time with MediaInfo as you recommended - so thank you so much.

[Budman1]

The 'Encoded\tagged' data is usually retained in an mp4 as ndjamena correctly informed us. Windows 'created\modified' date is often written as the time the video showed up on your PC (the paste time) because Windows assumes it was just created. When you look at the data in your camera, your camera has no windows OS so what you see is the correct Encoded date.

BTW, if you are looking for where the dates are stored, they are stored as 2 x 32 bit binary codes (Encoded/Tagged) in the MVHD, TKHD and MDHD MP4 atoms.

[ndjamena]

I don't know how current the information I'm looking at is, but it's possible to problem could be caused by attempting to copy between NTSC and FAT32 file systems. NTSC has a lot of attributes FAT32 doesn't, and FAT32 stores its dates to an accuracy of 2 seconds rather than 1 second.

The basic windows copying process may just be deciding the metadata is incompatible and discarding it all.

Apparently there are other copying tools that will retain the creation date.

[Vifa]

My memory card is apparently formatted as "Filesystem Hierarchy Standard".