For archiving purposes, I’ve renamed videos to the media creation date. Then I’ve created a python script that parses the filename (mm.dd.yyyy_hh.mm.ss) to a desired format (i.e. 12/25/2001 6:45.30 PM) and scrolls the time in 1 second intervals to clip’s end as a subtitle.
This and my previous post regarding batch importing would be great features for the novice looking to catalog and archive home movies.
I’ve searched back to a year so apologies if either topic’s been addressed further back.
You can also use python to script this part.
Why not use proper yyyy.mm.dd so they get sorted naturally?
I don’t understand this part, you just want to add a subtitle that shows the original file date for 1 second only?
If you are ok with hardcoding this instead of soft-subtitles you can use text: Simple with “#createdate#” keyword and it will automatically show the creation date on video.
Why not use proper yyyy.mm.dd so they get sorted naturally?
I misstated. My naming format is yyyy.mm.dd_hh.mm.ss
I’m interested in a tool or feature that creates a timecode in soft-subtitles form with videos that only contain a media creation date but no timestamp as you see in dv avi or camcorder footage. If the filename is the media create date (or whatever metadata used to determine proper video recording start time), the filename could be parsed and used as the starting time point and counted upon to create an srt timecode for the subtitle.
Oh, I understand now.
I think a more generic suggestion would be to have a quick/one click option to convert all the text from Text:Simple (or Rich) to soft subtitles (I mean all individual instances of text:simple from the entire timeline).
This way it would be very flexible and would cover so many cases (including yours, as both timecode and media creation are already keywords that can be used in text:simple).
I believe you are on the right track. But I am no expert.
Perhaps with selectable metadata read options (recording date isn’t always stored in the same field).
Maybe a choice of single line or two line output and either short date (5/9/2003) or long date (May 9, 2003).
The result would look something like below for:
short date
two line
A joiner would stitch end of first srt group (which would likely be duration of less than a second) to the beginning of the second srt group and so on.
1
00:00:00,000 → 00:00:01,000 (Media create data)
5/9/2003
12:09:43 PM
2
00:00:01,000 → 00:00:02,001
5/9/2003
12:09:44 PM
3
00:00:02,001 → 00:00:03,002
5/9/2003
12:09:45 PM
…
Edit
I assume drop-frame counting needs to occur on fractional fps such as 29.97, 59.94, or 23.976 video.
The #createdate# keyword has support for the classic format specifiers, so you can do this for your time example:
#createdate %Y.%m.%d#
#createdate %H:%M:%S#
But this results in a static value, not increasing every second as you want.
For that you could workaround using the GPS text filter which can show the file date + current time (=it changes every second).
So this basically already shows on screen what you want, but it has to be hardcoded text, there’s no option to see it as a soft subtitle (as far as i know).
#file_datetime_now %Y.%m.%d#
#file_datetime_now %H:%M:%S#