Is there any way to find the video editing software or camera that created a video?

Question

This question is inspired by the Exif data exists in JPEG files.

Is there any way to find:

1. the video editing software that created a video file?
2. the camera model that created a video file?
3. Get above information from a Youtube video?

Answer 1

1. Video editing software? Highly unlikely. Best bet would be to ask the producer.
2. Camera model that created a video file? Same as #1 above..
3. From a Youtube video? No. Even if there were any metadata that you wanted (which is highly unlikely) it would be stripped by YouTube re-encoding and compressing it.

Answer 2

Different NLEs each seem to live in their own metadata world. One common metadata element they all seem to preserve fairly well is timecode. Almost all support a few common elements, such as REEL, SCENE, and SHOT. But DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and Final Cut Pro X each have metadata slots that are unique to them, even in cases where the metadata slot shares a common name. MPEG, Quicktime, and other media formats do have slots for metadata, but nothing like the expansive and consistent world of EXIF.

In the pro video world, metadata is usually entered first via a slate, with the camera shooting the actual metadata at the start or end of a shot, and then what is now called the DIT (director of Imaging Technology) translate the slate data to metadata for the project. Some digital slates actually create little databases so that at the end of the data, all the text the camera shot as video footage is also available to be uploaded to a (metadata) database.

Answer 3

YouTube reencodes all uploads, so there is no way to recover any video metadata unless you have the original file.

If you have the original video file, sometimes cameras write specific metadata information into the video headers. Same for editing and compression software.

You can use a tool such as MediaInfo to output audio, video, and header information from a media file.