I know jAlbum unfortunately doesn't currently make extensive use of metadata in videos, but I nevertheless wanted to preserve the metadata (including GPS data) in the jAlbum conversion process. At least it will be there for anyone who downloads the video. I struggled for hours to figure out how to do it, mainly because (a) ffmpeg documentation leaves something to be desired, and (b) I don't really know what I am doing. Anyway, here's what worked for me, in case anyone else is interested:

1. I needed to update the version of ffmpeg which came with my (relatively recent) jAlbum release. Otherwise my changes below will cause conversion failure. See https://jalbum.net/forum/thread.jspa?threadID=51390&tstart=0

2. Go to Settings/Video and click on 'Use custom settings'. Change the value of the -movflags setting from 'faststart' to '+faststart'. Create a new entry just before this line. The new entry name should also be -movflags, and the value should be 'use_metadata_tags'. Create another new entry (I did this just above the $outputPath entry). This new entry name should be -map_metadata and its value is 0.

A quick way of accomplising the value changes in step 2 would be to open the jalbum-settings.jap file for the album, find the line

videoParameters=-y\=,-i\=$inputPath,-vf\=hqdn3d\\\=1.5\:1.5\:6\:6\\,scale\\\=min(iw\\\\\\,trunc(iw*min($videoWidth/iw\\\\\\,$videoHeight/ih)*0.5)*2)\:min(ih\\\\\\,trunc(ih*min($videoWidth/iw\\\\\\,$videoHeight/ih)*0.5)*2)\\,unsharp\\\=3\:3\:1.0\:3\:3\:0.0\\,$normalizeOrientation,-ss\=$clipStart,-t\=$clipLength,-threads\=0,-b\:a\=96k,-ac\=2,-ar\=44100,-vcodec\=libx264,-crf\=$videoQuality,-metadata\:s\:v\:0\=rotate\\\=0,-movflags\=faststart,-pix_fmt\=yuv420p,$outputPath\=

and replace it with

videoParameters=-y\=,-i\=$inputPath,-vf\=hqdn3d\\\=1.5\:1.5\:6\:6\\,scale\\\=min(iw\\\\\\,trunc(iw*min($videoWidth/iw\\\\\\,$videoHeight/ih)*0.5)*2)\:min(ih\\\\\\,trunc(ih*min($videoWidth/iw\\\\\\,$videoHeight/ih)*0.5)*2)\\,unsharp\\\=3\:3\:1.0\:3\:3\:0.0\\,$normalizeOrientation,-ss\=$clipStart,-t\=$clipLength,-threads\=0,-b\:a\=96k,-ac\=2,-ar\=44100,-vcodec\=libx264,-crf\=$videoQuality,-metadata\:s\:v\:0\=rotate\\\=0,-movflags\=use_metadata_tags,-movflags\=+faststart,-pix_fmt\=yuv420p,-map_metadata\=0,$outputPath\=

This may not preserve all metadata, but it seems to work for at least Quicktime GPS and creation dates.

Edited by: sburke on 25-Oct-2019 15:27

I wasn't aware of this tool, but I have tried it and it does exactly what I want. Many thanks.

At the risk of hijacking my own thread: I've noticed that although the tool works fine on most of the videos I have tested, it doesn't work on videos taken on an iPhone SE. Here's the metadata from an iPhone 5 video, which works fine:

  Metadata:
    major_brand     : qt
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: qt
    creation_time   : 2014-12-25T19:57:37.000000Z
    model           : iPhone 5
    model-eng       : iPhone 5
    encoder         : 7.1.2
    encoder-eng     : 7.1.2
    date            : 2014-12-25T19:57:37+0000
    date-eng        : 2014-12-25T19:57:37+0000
    location        : +53.7326+000.1260+133.588/ 
    location-eng    : +53.7326+000.1260+133.588/ 
    make            : Apple
    make-eng        : Apple
    com.apple.quicktime.make: Apple
    com.apple.quicktime.creationdate: 2014-12-25T19:57:37+0000
    com.apple.quicktime.location.ISO6709: +53.7326+000.1260+133.588/ 
    com.apple.quicktime.software: 7.1.2
    com.apple.quicktime.model: iPhone 5

But, for reasons best known to Apple, on an iPhone SE you get:

  Metadata:
    major_brand     : qt
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: qt
    creation_time   : 2019-01-31T11:59:28.000000Z
    com.apple.quicktime.content.identifier: 3DDF625B-9660-48DE-B3CD-D343FC75BAFC
    com.apple.quicktime.location.ISO6709: +27.9298-017.6405+015.962/ 
    com.apple.quicktime.make: Apple
    com.apple.quicktime.model: iPhone SE
    com.apple.quicktime.software: 11.4
    com.apple.quicktime.creationdate: 2019-01-31T11:59:28+0000

I can fiddle around to sort this out but I thought I'd report it.

Thanks again for this excellent tool.

I haven't done anything subtle - just changed line 69 from

if(s.indexOf("location ") != -1 && gps.equals("")) {

to

if(((s.indexOf("location ") != -1) || (s.indexOf("location.ISO6709") != -1)) && gps.equals("")) {

and line 77 from

s = s.substring(22);

to

s = s.substring(s.indexOf(":")+1);

I'm afraid I am not able to do extensive testing, but I have used the amended code successfully on videos created by iPhones 5, 5S and SE, an iPad Pro (12.9-inch) (2nd generation) and some MOVs created from AVIs from a couple of old cameras that I had retrospectively geotagged when converting using ffmpeg.

Tool now updated, thanks again.

I don't really know the answer to your question, but if you can provide a small video file with such metadata as you have used I am happy to have a look to see if I can do anything with it.

Many thanks for the offers to help.

I have attached four video clips. They all have comment/title metadata, but none of this is visible in jAlbum using List metadata :

100_0776v1.mov - this is a clip which was converted using ffmpeg from an old camera AVI. In the conversion I added comments/title using the -metadata comment= and -metadata title= flags. The metadata is visible in VLC, ffplay.exe and exiftool.exe. This video doesn't play properly in jAlbum, possibly because of the codec.

100_0776v2.mp4 - this is 100_0776v1.mov converted to compressed mp4 for use in jAlbum, preserving the metadata. The metadata is visible in ffplay.exe and exiftool.exe but not VLC.

IMG_0806ver1.mp4 - a conversion of an iPhone .mov clip, with metadata (again) added during the ffmpeg conversion. The metadata is visible in ffplay.exe and exiftool.exe but not VLC.

IMG_0806ver2.mp4 - a conversion of the same iPhone .mov clip, with metadata added subsequently using exiftool. The metadata is in xmp-dc:title and xmp-dc:description, and is visible in exiftool but not ffplay.exe nor VLC.

I'm guessing that a tool to extract the metadata would not be too difficult, but I wouldn't know what to do with it after I got it.

Try the attached modified tool, it will work on each video except for IMG_0806ver2.mp4

I can update the tool itself, though it would need renaming as it does more than GPS data. Opinions?

RobM - modified tool tested and does all I was hoping for! Can't tell you how much I appreciate this.

Edited by: sburke on 30-Oct-2019 14:58