Share your experience!
I am trying to figure out if the GPS data captured will be embedded into a move file taken on the camera, whether this done onboard the camera or after in a post import process?
I tried looking at SONYs GPS support data on their website to see but they say: "you can import photos and movies recorded with location and shooting direction information to a computer and enjoy viewing them with a map which shows their shooting location" - but this mentions nothing of embedding the data itself.
Now, movies are recorded in MPG/MP4/AVCHD then this data cannot be embedded because it has no container format to hold the data, unlike JPEG where the geo-data can be kept in the EXIF container.
So, is the GPS data embedded into the movie file or, say, recorded in a track log of which that data is then extrapolated onto a Map where the time/dates are used to link it all together?
ref: http://esupport.sony.com/docs/dvimag/DSCTX10-TX100V_guide/eng/contents/08/03/15/15.html
Thanks!
Right, well it turns out that the GPS metadata recorded for the movies, unlike the photos, is retained on the camera itself. This data is then parsed to the Windows only software which contains a map and that is how the movie is shown on the map.
The movies formats used are MPG/MP4/AVCHD of which none have the ability to retain metadata, so that data can never travel with the movie, it's locked in the camera and the software which SONY issues. While the EXIF data for the photos will carry the GPS data with the image internally.
There must be some kind of proprietary format that the data is stored in as there is no track log exported. This is a shame as if it were then third party applications could use this valuable data, which becomes especially important on operating systems like Mac OS X where the official SONY software is not supported.