Explorer time reporting problem for image files.

[John Melbourne]

Recently whilst moving some photo image files about I noticed an odd
problem. Whether it is a recent situation or whether it has always been
there and I have just never noticed it before I cannot say.

The image files have the usual crop of meta data including the "date taken"
date and time. What I noticed was that for some files the time displayed by
explorer was not what I expected.

I experimented and found that for files with a "date taken" date before 28
March 2009, Explorer incorrectly displayed the time, adding 1 hour to the
time contained in the meta data. Further experiments showed that the
problem continued with earlier dates until the 25 October 2008.

What appears to be happening is that explorer is applying a form of daylight
saving adjustment to the meta data time though adding an hour in the winter
seems rather bizarre.

Is this a known issue, the result of some obscure setting or simply a bug?

The problem occurs with Vista Home Premium, it does NOT occur with XP.


John M

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Recently whilst moving some photo image files about I noticed an odd
problem. Whether it is a recent situation or whether it has always been
there and I have just never noticed it before I cannot say.

The image files have the usual crop of meta data including the "date taken"
date and time. What I noticed was that for some files the time displayed by
explorer was not what I expected.

I experimented and found that for files with a "date taken" date before 28
March 2009, Explorer incorrectly displayed the time, adding 1 hour to the
time contained in the meta data. Further experiments showed that the
problem continued with earlier dates until the 25 October 2008.

What appears to be happening is that explorer is applying a form of daylight
saving adjustment to the meta data time though adding an hour in the winter
seems rather bizarre.

Is this a known issue, the result of some obscure setting or simply a bug?

The problem occurs with Vista Home Premium, it does NOT occur with XP.


John M

You must have an American version of Windows (or there's a bug in the UK
version).

In the US (also Canada), for the last few years, daylight saving time goes
from early March to late October.

See this:
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/rules/usa.htm

 

[jmoliver]

Windows Explorer displays the date taken using your computer's current time
zone setting. I believe this is a bug.

Time Zones in digital photography
http://jose.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!7A3197B8BEE5B42A!1480.entry

Hopes this helps,

 

[jmoliver]

I experimented and found that for files with a "date taken" date before 28
March 2009, Explorer incorrectly displayed the time, adding 1 hour to the
time contained in the meta data. Further experiments showed that the
problem continued with earlier dates until the 25 October 2008.

Some applications add timezone information or set the time zone info to
GMT-00. Windows Explorer in Vista displays this info based on your machine
time zone. It could be that another photo application modified this info.
Check out which photo editing/organizing applications you use.

You can also verify and change your photos timezone using GeoSetter
(http://www.geosetter.de/en/).