I tend to think of myself as a technically well informed person but i still dont fully understand the advantages of drop frame tc vc non drop tc.

untill now it was sort of either or for me. but reciently i got a sony pd100 and have to choose which to use.

thanks in advance for any help.

-- Christian Matts (Simple312@yahoo.com), June 07, 1999

Answers

b'casters need drop

If video were really 30fps, then a program that started at time code 00:00:00:00 and ended at the time code 01:00:00:00 would be one hour long. Unfortunately, video is really 29.97fps, so the aforementioned program is really longer than one hour. (The difference is 0.1%) This can really mess up broadcasters who obviously schedule things according to clock time. So, broadcasters use drop-frame time code. This version of time code skips or "drops" a number every so often so that the time code stays in sync with clock time.

Dropping time code numbers is inconvenient if you are trying to do time code math -- like trying to determine the length of a clip. Unless you are a broadcaster, or delivering programming primarily for broadcast, it is usually more convenient and less confusing to use non-drop time code.

-- Michael Korpi (michael_korpi@baylor.edu), June 08, 1999.