I have a folder filled with video streams(originally analog camcorder recordings, then transcoded to dvd, then VOBs were ripped to m2ts), and I've created a view of type File-List-Sort By Date (Earliest First). Most of the streams appear to sort in order, and MC shows the year that the video was taken in parentheses next to the filename, like 'filename (2009)'. Some of the streams do not sort correctly (they push to end of list), and have no year in parentheses in this view.
All the streams do have date info in the filenames, in general form 'yyyymm-'(rest of filename) or 'yyyymx-yyyymy-'(rest of filename) where mx-my is showing a range of months. I don't think I saw any obvious correlation with filenames that worked and those that didn't.
Is MC getting the date from/expecting a paradigm in the filename ? I know its not file create or modified date, since all of these streams were recently ripped from VOB and remuxed to m2TS; so the files all have very recent create and modified dates. I would be surprised if there is any meta data to show shoot date since it came from ripped VHS-C, unless it was extracted from the vobs and dvd chapter names (which also contained year and month).