Add a timestamp to a video file?

Question

I have some video footage from my phone's dash camera app. In the app, the video plays with the timestamp showing. However, exporting the file to my computer does the video only, without the timestamp.

Is there a simple way to add the timestamp with (preferably free) Windows software? I don't need the timestamp to be extracted from metadata. I can compare the video on my phone app to the one on my PC, and get the timestamp 'close enough' if it will let me put the start time on it manually where I want.

Answer 1

You can use FFmpeg, a free command-line tool, to do this.

Basic command is

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "drawtext=fontfile=font.ttf:
                        fontsize=45:fontcolor=white:
                        box=1:[email protected]:
                        text='Time\: %{pts\:gmtime\:1466507118}'" output.mp4

(this should be in one line)

The value you need to change is 1466507118. This is the Unix epoch time representation of your intended date and time.