Home Video Release Date

[warrencalvert 16]

Hi

 

I have a lot of home videos in Emby which I have specified 'sort by release date'.  Unfortunately these videos are not being sorted by date, some are in a random order.  

It appears that the metadata for 'Release Date' for a lot of these videos is empty'.

 

I checked the original video files and they do have date metadata in a number of fields:

exif:DateTimeOriginal

exif:DateTimeDigitized

xmp:CreateDate

DescriptionDate

The above metadata fields all have the correct date/time.  The file itself has the correct create date and modified date.

 

Is Emby not able to read any of this metadata from the file?  If not, what metadata field needs to be updated in the files so it will sort them by date?  I know the Release Date can be entered manually in Emby file by file but I have over 8000 home video clips so cannot update each one manually.

 

thanks,

warren.

 

[Happy2Play 9782]

To me this is sort of a grey area as Home Videos do not have a Release Date.  They have a created date or a date added that could potentially be applied to that field.

 

Release date is usually gotten from a metadata provider site to be applies to the item.

 

@@Luke would have to comment but I know none of my Home Video test media has Release dates. 

 

I know it is a simple database column copy from DateCreated to PremiereDate for that specific content type.

[warrencalvert 16]

That would be very disappointing if Emby can't sort home videos by date.  That's one of the major reasons I switched from Plex - Plex cant sort videos or photos by date either.

In the sort options the only options are Date Added, Date Played and Release Date.  None of these will work for sorting home videos by date created.  

 

Luke, do you have any plans to add this and is there a work around I can use for now?

 

thanks,

[Happy2Play 9782]

I am a little confused as Emby has a global option for how a item is imported. "Use file date created" or "Use date scanned into library", this option gives you the dated provided for date added.  Dashboard-Library Advanced tab

[Luke 42080]

Can you provide a sample video for testing? We'll have to see if ffprobe captures that. Thanks.

[warrencalvert 16]

Hi,

Please find attached a sample video file.

 

If I look at 'Release Date' in the metadata in Emby its empty.  However, I do notice the 'Date Added' corresponds to the File Creation date in the filesystem.   In this case, the file creation date is wrong which likely explains why Emby is sorting them incorrectly.  I dont use file creation date for sorting in any other app but I can easily go through and fix these.

 

So should importing videos populate the Release Date in Emby or should I just ensure the file system creation date corresponds to the date the video was taken, then sort by Date Added instead?

 

It looks like I might have misunderstood what 'Date Added' means in Emby.  I thought it meant date added to library which is not what I'm looking for.  However if it means date created in the file system then that would work.

 

Many thanks,

 

_DSC1871.MOV

[ebr 16185]

At this time "Release Date" would only come from a metadata provider so this won't be populated for home videos.  Luke will look at your sample and see if it may be possible for us to derive this in the future.

 

Thanks.

[Luke 42080]

Yes release date and date added are two different things, both of which can be customized in the metadata editor.

[warrencalvert 16]

Thanks, that's making more sense now I understand what 'Release Date' and 'Date Added' mean in Emby.

 

Most of the videos are being sorted correctly but some are showing incorrect dates.  Please could you take a look at the attached screenshots and let me know where else Emby could be getting the incorrect date from.  The video is dated 31/12/2009 but Emby is showing 8/1/2010.

 

I've checked all the file properties and metadata I can think of but cannot see where its getting the date from for this video.  It must be getting it from somewhere - any ideas where to look?

 

thanks,

 

[Luke 42080]

With your sample file i was able to get the 2012 creation date from ffprobe so we can use that now for the date added value in Emby.

[ebr 16185]

With your sample file i was able to get the 2012 creation date from ffprobe so we can use that now for the date added value in Emby.

 

But he is wanting release date, correct?  If we put that value in Release Date, then it would be possible to have both sorts just like movies.  You could sort by the date they were added to your library (see things you recently added) or also sort by the date the "film" was actually "released".

[warrencalvert 16]

Hi

 

Dont worry about release date, now I know that's only used for commercial productions we can leave that.  If I can use Date Added to achieve sorting of home videos by date then that's all I need.

 

So my outstanding issue is that some of the videos that Emby imports have an incorrect Date Added.  As per the screenshots I posted earlier for video named 00027.mts I cant see where the date of 8/1/2010 is coming from since all the fields I can see for this file are dated 31/12/2009 

 

Can you advise where Emby gets the 'Date Added' metadata from?  Does it depend on file type?  Is there a set logic it follows?

 

I've attached one of the problematic files (the forum wouldnt let me upload an .MTS file so I've zipped it - please extract the video from the zip), please can you see if you can work out where its getting this date from so I can correct it?

 

thanks,

00027.zip

[warrencalvert 16]

I've just re-read Bottle Washer's post above and just wanted to clarify something.  He suggested the Date Added could be used to sort by when the videos were added to the library.  My experience is that this is not what the Date Added field means.

On my system Date Added in Emby reflects the metadata of when the video was created.  I dont know which metadata field its using but its definitely not date added to library otherwise all the videos would have a date added of today.  

 

What I actually want is to sort home videos by the date they were taken and Date Added does seem to do this with the exception of a few videos as per my previous post above re video 00027.mts

 

thanks,

[ebr 16185]

I've just re-read Bottle Washer's post above and just wanted to clarify something.  He suggested the Date Added could be used to sort by when the videos were added to the library.  My experience is that this is not what the Date Added field means.

On my system Date Added in Emby reflects the metadata of when the video was created.  I dont know which metadata field its using but its definitely not date added to library otherwise all the videos would have a date added of today.  

 

What I actually want is to sort home videos by the date they were taken and Date Added does seem to do this with the exception of a few videos as per my previous post above re video 00027.mts

 

thanks,

 

There is an option in Emby to use either the file creation date or the date the item was imported to the library as the Added date.

[EZEd 60]

I don't know if it would be helpful to the OP or not but just a suggestion from what I personally do for all of my home videos and photos is to append all file names with the date taken, so I all of my personal photos and videos filenames look like yyyymmdd_title_or_image_name.ext.  By doing this you can simply sort in Emby by filename and by default everything is date ordered.  I learned long ago not to rely on metadata because it can get lost or corrupted.  At this point, file metadata just becomes a nice to have.  There are many file-renamer tools available that can batch process all of your files to accomplish this.  It's a PITA to get done the first time but you'll be some much happier with the results of your file structure if you do.  Just a suggestion.

 

Thx

EZEd

[warrencalvert 16]

Thanks both for the suggestions.

 

I checked the settings and the Date added behaviour for new content is set to file creation date. Thanks for pointing this out - so it is set correctly and is working as expected in most cases.

Thanks for the renaming suggestion, I have considered this but would rather not if it can be avoided.  

 

Emby does work and sort correctly in the majority of cases, it just appears to be a few isolated videos as mentioned above where I cant see where Emby is getting the incorrect date from.

All I can think is that there's some hidden metadata in the file that Emby is picking up but none of the tools I have tried are showing it.

 

Luke, if you're able to advise on the file 00027.mts I attached I'd be very grateful.

 

many thanks

[Luke 42080]

Hi

 

Dont worry about release date, now I know that's only used for commercial productions we can leave that.  If I can use Date Added to achieve sorting of home videos by date then that's all I need.

 

So my outstanding issue is that some of the videos that Emby imports have an incorrect Date Added.  As per the screenshots I posted earlier for video named 00027.mts I cant see where the date of 8/1/2010 is coming from since all the fields I can see for this file are dated 31/12/2009 

 

Can you advise where Emby gets the 'Date Added' metadata from?  Does it depend on file type?  Is there a set logic it follows?

 

I've attached one of the problematic files (the forum wouldnt let me upload an .MTS file so I've zipped it - please extract the video from the zip), please can you see if you can work out where its getting this date from so I can correct it?

 

thanks,

 

With the current release server there's no date added coming from embedded metadata so there's nothing to look at as far as this file is concerned. It depends on your date added options.

[warrencalvert 16]

Thanks for the clarification but that's bizarre why it set the wrong date.

I finally fixed this by recopying these files and deleting the originals.  

 

Thanks everyone for the help and advice.

[warrencalvert 16]

Actually, one last update that may be helpful for anyone else who encounters this.  I finally found the issue.  Although these files were dated correctly, I spotted there were some sidecar files with extension xml.  These had the wrong date and this is where Emby was getting the date added from.  I've deleted these now and relying just on the metadata and file properties of the mts files themselves.  
Everything is sorted in the correct order now.

 

thanks everyone for helping.

[Luke 42080]

Thanks for the feedback.