Describe SMPTE timecode and its role in synchronizing audio to video.

• A. SMPTE timecode provides frame-accurate timestamps to align audio with picture across editing, ADR, and post workflows.
• B. SMPTE timecode includes color grading data for video.
• C. SMPTE timecode is a sampling-rate standard for audio.
• D. SMPTE timecode encodes room tone metadata.

Answer: (A)

The main idea is that SMPTE timecode provides frame-accurate timestamps that let you align audio to video across editing, ADR, and post workflows. Timecode is a clock that runs with your video and assigns each frame a unique label in hours:minutes:seconds:frames at a given frame rate. This labeling lets editors and audio teams lock audio tracks to the exact video frames, so dialogue recorded separately (ADR), sound effects, and music cues synchronize precisely with the performers’ movements and on-screen action. Timecode can be carried alongside both video (as VITC) and audio (as LTC), and software can synchronize to a common timecode so all parts of the project stay in sync throughout editing, conforming, and final mixing. Color grading data sits in its own metadata, not in timecode. The sampling rate describes how often audio is sampled per second, not how frames are timestamped. Room-tone metadata is separate from frame timing.