SMPTE Timecode Segment

by Sean Wallitsch - - posted in editing, python, vfx

While developing a test suite for another project, I started writing a bit of python to generate SMPTE timecode- start, end, and duration. I needed to have the ability for it to generate random timecode as well.

In the end, it became so large it needed its own tests (Timecode can be pretty complex) and I ended up throwing it on a gist. It’s of limited use now, my end goal would be to develop a datetime style TimeCode class which could be added, subtracted, delta’d etc.

Other SMPTE Timecode projects

I might end up forking the abandoned pytimecode (which is thankfully under an MIT License) and combining it with something like smptecalc, which is unfortunately without any attached license (so forking it and developing it on my own is legally iffy).

SMPTE TimeCode Segment

Usage

TimeCodeSegment takes hour, minute, second, and frame args for initializing the starting timecode, and duration (in frames) and fps for calculating an ending timecode and duration. If any of these args (except fps) are not provided during class initializing, they will be randomized. You can actually just call TimeCodeSegment() to get a completely random, 24 frames per second timecode segment.

>>> tc = TimeCodeSegment(hour=12, minute=45, second=10, frame=20, duration=300)
>>> tc.start
'12:45:10:20'
>>> tc.end
'12:45:23:08'
>>> tc.dur
'00:00:12:12'

Testing

The gist comes with a 100% coverage test suite, so if you just call the python file you’ll run the unittests.

python smpte_timecode_segment.py 
..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 10 tests in 0.001s

OK

Code