SMPTE is an acronym for: the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. SMPTE time code is a timing standard used to "mark" audio tapes, films and video with a continuous timing signal throughout the course of your audio tape or video. For example, SMPTE time code, recorded either on one track of a multi track sound recording or in between the pictures of a video, can tell the composer or sound engineer exactly WHERE you are, in time, since the start of the music or video. In audio, as in Skidmore's 16 track analog machine, you "stripe" SMPTE time code (record the timing info) on track 16 of the tape recorder. This can be done anytime, so long as track 16 is free for that purpose (keep this in mind when doing your projects). In video, the time code is written "in between" each of the frames of the picture (video, like film, consists of many individual pictures moving quickly by the eye, each picture slightly different than the other, to simulate continuous motion. The eye is "fooled" into thinking the whole thing is one continuous motion).
There are two kinds of SMPTE Time Code:
1. LTC: Longitudinal Time Code:used for doing Automixdowns with the O2R mixers, AND for locking a MIDI sequence to multitrack recorders. LTC is a quickly alternating tone that you record onto one track of your multitrack project or onto one of the two audio tracks of a video machine. LTC is an audible sound which a time code reader can interpret for timing locatin information. LTC is not a musically useful sound in itself (you should NOT HEAR the time code in your final mixdown!!), and LTC can be added AFTER all other tracks are recorded. This is NOT true for VITC.
2. VITC = Vertical Interval Time Code: used in video only
This is an image of tiny jiggling/moving blips/squares in the area between individual pictures of your video. The movie/video consumer does normally NOT SEE these "cracks" between the frames of video. By sending your video signal through a special device like the DIGITAL TIME PIECE
What do they both have in common?