OT – Timecode calculator

[Walter Biscardi]

There’s a Timecode Widget available for OS X. Just go to the Apple site and whereever they hide the widgets these days, go there. I use this all the time to convert NDF to DF.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!

[Steven Gonzales]

You can get to a timecode value from minutes with a formula in excel.

If your minutes are in cell A1, then the formula in another cell would be:

=(INT(A1/60))&”:”&(MOD(A1,60))&”:00:00″

int function divides minutes by 60, rounding down to get hours. Mod divides minutes by 60 and gives the remainder to get minutes, and since you don’t have seconds and frames, you can just display zeros there.

[Max Frank]

Steve,

Thanks for the tip – I’m ashamed to admit this, but I hardly use Excel and
don’t quite know how to execute your suggestion, so if you could give me an
‘idiots-guide’ to the process, I’d appreciate it.

Walter – thanks for the suggestion, but that widget, and countless other TC calculators I’ve tried don’t do what I’m looking for.

Thanks in advance,

Wayne

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Waine;
Just open a new sequence in FC and type 820000 (82′ 00″ 00f) in any of the canvas TC windows. FC will convert it to HH MM SS.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Max Frank]

Thanks Rafael,

That works, but how would I deal with 159:42 [ie 159.42 minutes?]

Wayne

[Rafael Amador]

In the moment you have more than 99 minutes, things get a bit more complicated, but to see the TC corresponding to 159’42” you don’t need any computer: 2h 39′ 42″ 00f.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Steven Gonzales]

Type or copy the minutes number into cell A1.

In cell A2, type exactly what was in the previous post:

=(INT(A1/60))&”:”&(MOD(A1,60))&”:00:00″

the equal sign tells excel that this is a formula. The “A1” in the formula are a reference to what in cell A1. To be exact, it is a relative reference. INT and MOD are built in functions, which means they take arguments and return a result. The INT returns the results of dividing cell A1 contents by 60, then rounding it down to the previous integer. Mod takes the contents of cell A1, divides it by the other argument, which is 60, and returns the remainder after that division is done. The & sign is a way of concatenating (joinging together) strings, so “:” and “:00:00” are strings.

The result of the first function is joined with “:” and then joined with the result of the second function and then joined with “:00:00”. So you end up with something which looks like timecode, but was really a processing of your minutes to turn then into hours, and minutes remainder after calculating hours.

For your next lesson, you should learn what is the difference between a relative and an absolute reference. This is very useful in Excel.

[Max Frank]

Thanks all for the help and thank you Steven for the detailed explanation.

All the best,

Wayne

[Ron Coy]

i second the widget… easy as hell to get to in a pinch… just hit F12 to bring up dashboard and it’s there.