What does ff mean for time duration?

Question

I found a cue manager for composers and saw a record:

Start TC    End TC
(hhmmssff)  (hhmmssff)

I don't understand what f(ff) means. Can you explain me please?

One thing to note is that this sheet is made by a composer called Shie Rozow especially for film scoring, see shierozow.com/scoring-films-on-a-shoestring-budget . This means that terminology here is coming from video terminology where occasionally you need to be precise to a very single frame. — Lazy, May 30 at 20:06

El Ectric · Accepted Answer · 2023-05-31 12:23:33Z

13

HH = Hours

SS = Seconds

MM = Minutes

FF = (Video) Frames

edited May 31 at 12:23

answered May 30 at 19:52

El Ectric

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These are video frames, right?
– user1079505
May 30 at 20:23
@user1079505 Yes. Typically FF ranges from 1-24, 1-25, 1-29, or 1-30. There are drop frame time codes where not every second has the same number of frames. Note that whole a frame is the shortest amount of time in video it is far from the shortest amount of time in digital audio; that would be the sample. But a time code that includes a samples field would be too long to be useful.
– Todd Wilcox
May 31 at 0:08
@ToddWilcox In audio, you can go shorter than a distance between samples, because samples define a continuous wave which can be reconstructed, shifted with arbitrary precision and then resampled.
– Dmitri Urbanowicz
May 31 at 14:14
1

FF (or FFF) could also mean fraction of a second. FF = 10th of a second, FFF means hundredth of a second. I think you are right in this case though, FF means frames, unless there are any cues that have FF>30.
– Neil
May 31 at 15:40
@ToddWilcox And of course that number varies based on your location and the camera being used. In the US, it's typically 24 FPS for film, 30 FPS for television, while in Europe it's mostly 25 FPS for broadcast. (It originally was tied in directly to the phase of mains A/C in the various regions.) Some newer movies are filmed and even projected at 60 FPS, but this is usually reduced to one of the other values when you see it on your TV at home.
– Darrel Hoffman
May 31 at 18:30

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