PC Audio Editing, 2nd Edition

Appendix 1

Time code

All modern audio systems have a time code option. With digital systems, it is effectively built in. At its simplest level it is easy to understand; it stores time in hours, minutes and seconds. As so often, there are several standards.

The most common audio time display that people meet is on the compact disc; this gives minutes and seconds. For professional players, this can be resolved down to fraction of second by counting the data blocks. These are conventionally called frames, and there are 75 every second. This is potentially confusing, as CDs were originally mastered from three-quarter-inch U-Matic videotapes where the data were configured to look like an American television picture running at 30 video frames per ...