Logic to determine media creation time

[aeozyalcin]

I noticed that some of the videos I received over Whatsapp and through other means do not show up at the right spot on the Immich timeline. These videos will show up as being taken today, even though that's not true. On Google Photos, they are in the right spot on the timeline, and show up where I expect them to.

I read the FAQ here on how Immich determines when a media was created. Using ExifTool on the problematic video file in question, I saw that indeed it was lacking Create Date & Modify Date. However, it does have File Creation Date/Time correctly entered.

So here is my question, doesn't it make sense to fall back to using File Creation Date/Time as last resort if there is no Create Date, rather than giving up and saying today is when it was created?

ExifTool Version Number         : 12.65
File Name                       : IMG_7326.MOV
Directory                       : C:/Users/aeozy/Downloads/Canada 2022
File Size                       : 7.0 MB
Zone Identifier                 : Exists
File Modification Date/Time     : 2023:08:29 22:29:28-07:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2023:08:29 23:20:50-07:00
File Creation Date/Time         : 2022:08:25 17:44:48-07:00
File Permissions                : -rw-rw-rw-
File Type                       : MP4
File Type Extension             : mp4
MIME Type                       : video/mp4
Major Brand                     : MP4 v2 [ISO 14496-14]
Minor Version                   : 0.0.0
Compatible Brands               : isom, mp42
Movie Header Version            : 0
Create Date                     : 0000:00:00 00:00:00
Modify Date                     : 0000:00:00 00:00:00
Time Scale                      : 1000
Duration                        : 10.91 s
Preferred Rate                  : 1
Preferred Volume                : 100.00%
Preview Time                    : 0 s
Preview Duration                : 0 s
Poster Time                     : 0 s
Selection Time                  : 0 s
Selection Duration              : 0 s
Current Time                    : 0 s
Next Track ID                   : 3
Track Header Version            : 0
Track Create Date               : 0000:00:00 00:00:00
Track Modify Date               : 0000:00:00 00:00:00
Track ID                        : 1
Track Duration                  : 10.87 s
Track Layer                     : 0
Track Volume                    : 0.00%
Image Width                     : 1080
Image Height                    : 1920
Compressor ID                   : avc1
Source Image Width              : 1080
Source Image Height             : 1920
X Resolution                    : 72
Y Resolution                    : 72
Bit Depth                       : 24
Video Frame Rate                : 30
Graphics Mode                   : srcCopy
Op Color                        : 0 0 0
Matrix Structure                : 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Media Header Version            : 0
Media Create Date               : 0000:00:00 00:00:00
Media Modify Date               : 0000:00:00 00:00:00
Media Time Scale                : 44100
Media Duration                  : 10.91 s
Media Language Code             : und
Handler Description             : ISO Media file produced by Google Inc.
Audio Format                    : mp4a
Audio Channels                  : 2
Audio Bits Per Sample           : 16
Audio Sample Rate               : 44100
Balance                         : 0
Handler Type                    : Metadata
Handler Vendor ID               : Apple
Encoder                         : Google
Media Data Size                 : 6955557
Media Data Offset               : 5633
Image Size                      : 1080x1920
Megapixels                      : 2.1
Avg Bitrate                     : 5.1 Mbps
Rotation                        : 0

[Jerning]

I also noticed this issue with the timeline.

I think it's a timezone problem because I took photos on my phone in the morning, noon, afternoon, and evening respectively.

Some of the photos are correctly displayed on the same day, but some of the evening photos are shown as taken tomorrow.

My timezone is UTC+8. Since I took all the photos with the same phone, the issue you mentioned shouldn't exist.