Adobe PREMIERE 5, User Manual, Page: 347 / 404

339 ADOBE PREMIERE 5.0
User Guide
Understanding timecode and time display options
Timecode defines how frames are counted and affects the way you view and specify time
throughout a project. You specify a timecode style based on the media most relevant to your
project. For example, you count frames differently when editing video for television than
when editing for motion-picture film. By default, Premiere displays time using the Society
of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) video timecode: hours, minutes,
seconds, and frames. At any time, you can change to another system of time display, such as
feet and frames of 16mm or 35mm film. The method you choose applies to all time displays
in Premiere. Timecode never changes the timebase or frame rate of a clip or project—it only
changes how the frames are numbered. Also, timecode counts frames but not fields. See
“Comparing interlaced and non-interlaced video” on page 341, and “General settings” on
page 59.
You can choose from the following time-display options:
SMPTE and SMPTE–Drop Frame
Count frames in frames per second. See the following topic,
“Drop-frame and non-drop-frame timecode.”
Frames/Samples Counts individual clip frames and audio samples.
Feet/Frames 35mm and Feet/Frames 16mm
Count feet of 35mm or 16mm motion-picture film,
respectively, and count fractions of feet in frames: 35mm film has 16 frames per foot, and
16mm film has 40 frames per foot.
Drop-frame and non-drop-frame timecode
The Time Display option in the General Settings, Monitor Window Options, and Timeline
Window Options dialog boxes includes the 30 fps Drop-Frame Timecode and 30 fps Non
Drop-Frame Timecode options. Use drop-frame timecode whenever you are editing NTSC
video that must match a specific real-time duration, such as a television program that must
be precisely one hour long. When you work with a composition using the NTSC-standard
29.97 fps timebase, the fractional difference between the 29.97 fps frame rate and 30 fps frame
numbering causes a difference between the stated duration of the program and its actual
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