VidCap HDV files - no record date/time?

Himanshu wrote on 8/11/2009, 8:28 PM
Vegas Pro 8.0c & 8.1 on Vista 64.

Captured a bunch of tapes back in May that I am just now processing. I used the built-in VidCap to capture HDV from my Sony HDR-HC3 and they came over as .m2t files.

When I look at these m2t clips in the project media, they have no date/time stamp! The modified date is the date/time I captured the video from MiniDV. Is this expected? If so, how do I (easily) obtain this information from the .m2t files?

FYI, when I use the HDV-to-DV downconvert feature of the HC3 and capture clips using DV mode, the Date/Time fields are populated as expected. In that case though I noticed a different bug that the first clip doesn't have the correct date/time stamp, but the rest do.

Comments

PeterDuke wrote on 8/12/2009, 7:14 PM
A workaround is to use HDVsplit to capture your video from tape. Each clip is placed in a separate file named according to shooting time and date. Once on the timeline, showing "properties" for the clip (event) shows you the file name and hence shooting time and date.
Himanshu wrote on 8/12/2009, 7:40 PM
Agreed, that is a reasonable workaround for new tapes. I'm hoping to save several hours of capture time by being able to get the information from the files I already have. In fact I have few files I captured using HDVSplit a long time ago and see that even they do not show any information in the "Date/Time Stamp" column in the Project Media browser in Vegas.

So I guess the question is, is this an anomaly, or a known bug (feature?). Does this happen in Vidcap from Vegas 9 as well? Is it a limitation of the m2t format?
Himanshu wrote on 8/14/2009, 1:56 AM
Quick follow-up: A link to a relevant post was broke, but Kevin St.A fixed it, so here it is: OT: read & edit metadata in HDV files.

I've also opened a support case to find out if this is a bug in VidCap and/or Vegas, and filed an enhancement request as well.
Himanshu wrote on 8/24/2009, 4:13 PM
OK, there's some good news from support on this issue:

"The information is in the .m2t file, but the currently shipping reader does not pick it up. I am also told that we are working on implementing this functionality in a forthcoming update to the software."

Knowing that the capture date/time is in the m2t file means I don't need to recapture six hours of tape that I have sitting around.
Himanshu wrote on 8/24/2009, 6:43 PM
And if anyone is still following the thread...I verified that the m2t file does indeed have the shoot time/date by using AviSynth & the HDVInfo plugin in combination with DGDecode & DGIndex. It clearly shows that the metadata is in the m2t file which is in line with SCS support's response.