Add time/date to video or something else?

[David22]

I have 4k/1080p video of my mom before she passed away, i wanted to add the date/time to the video somehow so i will always know when the video was taken. In the old days camcorders would stamp that info on the video but how is it done now days?

These videos will only be played on a PC or iPad type device. Do i add a overlay with the info when the video starts. I have a lot of videos through the years.

[redwudz]

If you just need to add it to the video, easy would by to add a separate SRT type subtitle, if your media type permits that.
Or you could add some blank frames at the beginning of the clip and place text of the date and other information and append that to the video.

The original video itself may have a timecode. What camcorder was used?
Other members here may have some suggestions for extracting a timecode if the camera was set up correctly to create them.

[David22]

It was a mix of video going from a Sony RX100-V to a A7III, Canon 80D, 70D.

How do i find out the timecode? The files have a creation date and a modified date, some videos are easy as there is a clock and calendar in view.

[JVRaines]

If you are making MP4 files, you can easily add this information as metadata with an editor such as MP3Tag.

[David22]

If you are making MP4 files, you can easily add this information as metadata with an editor such as MP3Tag.

That will only show up if you click into the details of a file right?

[JVRaines]

Most players can be configured to display metadata onscreen or in the window title. If you want it to be inevitable, however, you will have to burn it into the video as a hard caption. This entails re-encoding at least part of the video.

[johnmeyer]

... and if you re-encode, you lose quality, something you don't want to do if it is a precious video. That is why the embedded (turn on/off when you want) subtitle is better, even though the user must know to turn it on.

You could append a title slide at the beginning of the video that has the date/time on it and also tells the user to turn on subtitles if they want more information.

[David22]

... and if you re-encode, you lose quality, something you don't want to do if it is a precious video. That is why the embedded (turn on/off when you want) subtitle is better, even though the user must know to turn it on.

You could append a title slide at the beginning of the video that has the date/time on it and also tells the user to turn on subtitles if they want more information.

How does one do it without re-encode? The main trouble is that the RX100V would only do 5 min of 4k video so i have all these clips.

Thanks for the help.

[johnmeyer]

... and if you re-encode, you lose quality, something you don't want to do if it is a precious video. That is why the embedded (turn on/off when you want) subtitle is better, even though the user must know to turn it on.

You could append a title slide at the beginning of the video that has the date/time on it and also tells the user to turn on subtitles if they want more information.

How does one do it without re-encode?

You don't and you can't. Once you change even one pixel of video on a frame, that frame must be re-encoded. That's just the way it works.