The Braseltons

// This is pretty geeky stuff but it is really fun for me.  Basically it is about GPS data in iPhone 3GS videos and how I now access it.

I knew the iPhone 3GS’s pictures had GPS coordinates in them. You can easily access this data via the ‘exif_read_data’ in PHP 4.2.0 and above. That’s cool stuff to me. I wrote something to get all of the coordinates and link them to a Google map. That was nifty.

//Thar be coordinates

I was wondering if coordinates were in the videos. So, I opened iPhoto and checked out the detailed data of a video. Sure enough! The coordinates are in it!  I tried to use the ‘exif_read_data’ but it spewed an error that they were not supported file types.  In actual reading of the manual, sure enough, it is only for .jpg and .tif images.  Crud.

//Getting deeper – just a matter of digging through the file

I put on my propeller hat and started hacking away and checking stuff out.  Yep, found the data in the file.  Easy squeazy.  I dug out the coordinates and I am now able to do what I want with it.  This is another reason that I host my own videos now.  I can display any data that I want and how I want it displayed.  It is really simple.  My data, my display, my backups and my everything!

//Now display all of this cool data you found

I am working on a page to just list all of the videos (from now on) and have basic information that is searchable (even from the iPhone since I can’t CTRL-F or Command-F and find stuff on a page).  Just a simple page with everything.  I may do something else in a few years as I have plans if I continue to send videos to the blog.  It is REALLY cool.

//I like to share

If you are geeky and wanna know how I did it, feel free to ask.  You can figure it out too.  The information is available.