Batch convert videos

[ahostmadsen]

I have hundreds of videos recorded with an old camera, stored in Photos. Right now, they don't play in photos, but QuickTime can convert them through a plugin by the camera manufacturer that amazingly still works. But I think it will not work in next version of MacOS.

So, here is what I want to do
1. Batch covert all the videos.
2. Give them the same creation data as the original video -- very important, as that is the only way to tell the context of the video.
3. Put the videos back in Photos.

I can do this individually for each video using Quicktime and then adjusting the date in photos, but with hundreds it seems infeasible to do it manually.

 

[ahostmadsen]

I have hundreds of videos recorded with an old camera, stored in Photos. Right now, they don't play in photos, but QuickTime can convert them through a plugin by the camera manufacturer that amazingly still works. But I think it will not work in next version of MacOS.

So, here is what I want to do
1. Batch covert all the videos.
2. Give them the same creation data as the original video -- very important, as that is the only way to tell the context of the video.
3. Put the videos back in Photos.

I can do this individually for each video using Quicktime and then adjusting the date in photos, but with hundreds it seems infeasible to do it manually.

Does anyone have any idea how to solve this? This will prevent my from ever upgrading my computers from Mojave.

 

[Gwendolini]

What format and codec is used in those video files?

The batch conversion might not be the problem, but the metadata with date and time stamp.

Thus I might recommend using something like Name Mangler to batch rename the files by adding the creation date and time to the file name and then finding something to use that file name of the converted file to either add the time stamp (possible with Terminal, there might be a batch script out there) to its metadata or well you make a new organisational move.
I have done so several times, to find the best solution for me (time stamps are important for that, but if the date/time is in the file name, it might work too).