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Video Timecode Field

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airship
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

For video editing purposes, how can I input timecode into a field? The format could be either:

H:MM:SS (hours:minutes:seconds)
MM:SS (minutes:seconds)

In the article Supported format specifiers for DATETIME_FORMAT I found “Preset timestamp format”, but that’s a timestamp. My desired format is time duration, similar to a stopwatch.

Thanks!

1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
airship
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

Duration field type is out of Beta since 2018-02-21! :grinning:

See Solution in Thread

16 Replies 16

At the moment, you’ll have to accept it as a text entry and perform the necessary conversions and calculations yourself. I’ve put together a quick demonstration of some possible routines to do so here. The Duration field accepts a timestamp in either ‘HH:MM’ or ‘HH:MM:SS’ format; breaks out Hours, Minutes, and Seconds; converts Hours, Minutes, and Seconds to TotalSeconds; extracts GetHours, GetMinutes, and GetSeconds from TotalSeconds; and, finally, returns GetHours, GetMinutes, and GetSeconds to NewDuration in ‘HH:MM:SS’ format. (Alternate formulas are also provided that convert Duration directly to TotalSeconds2 and TotalSeconds directly to NewDuration2.)

The parsing routine will correctly interpret timestamps with either 1- or 2-digit unit sections, in any combination (e.g., ‘HH:MM:SS’, ‘H:MM’, ‘HH:M:SS’, ‘H:M:S’, and so on).

Note: These routines support only to 1-second granularity, but could easily be enhanced to support fractional-second or per-frame timing.

I realize this wasn’t what you were hoping to find, but I hope it’s an acceptable substitute…

Wow @W_Vann_Hall, you’ve gone above and beyond! Talk about workaround! To be honest, mildly disappointed that Airtable doesn’t support duration for now. I’ll use your template you’ve created, and possibly just resort to Google Sheets if that becomes too annoying. Thank you!!!

Paul_Murray
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Hello I am new to Airtable and really like it so far. I am particularly interested in using it in the world of video/digital asset management. Is there a road map to introduce some kind of time code calculator?

I am a new user of Airtable, and this is one of the most important features to me. I signed up for Airtable to keep track of audio/video assets and timecodes. I am sad that it can’t do this yet. I hope you will incorporate it soon so that I don’t have to keep looking for another solution. I like everything else about Airtable I’ve seen so far.

If you will incorporate this feature, can you give us an approximate timeline?

Susan_Johnson
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Just wanted to add my vote for this feature- I would love to be able to use Airtable for film production, but without timecode support, it’s a no-go :frowning: Otherwise, love this product!

Airtable now offers a Duration field type that is available in beta. A duration field can be used for video timecodes measured in seconds or milliseconds, as well as for event lengths in hours and minutes. To sign up for early access to the Duration field type, please visit our beta signup form.

Fantastic news @Matt_Bush! I just applied for the Beta program. To clarify, is the timecode format HH:MM:SS:MsMs (hours:minutes:seconds:milliseconds)?

@W_Vann_Hall
That’s a great solution!

airship
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

Duration field type is out of Beta since 2018-02-21! :grinning:

What about double digit hours?

For durations configured as ‘h:mm’, anything entered before the colon (’:’) is considered hours, regardless of the number of digits. (Well, at least for as many digits as I’ve bothered to test; presumably it breaks down at some point. ‘50000:20’ works out correctly to ‘2083 days 8:20’, so 5-digit hour values seem to work.

Tossing in a second colon confuses things — that is, for a ‘h:mm’ duration — but I’ve not quite figured out how. For durations configured for second or sub-second granularity, two-colon entries with multiple-digit hours work fine.

Can we have one for true video time code that includes frames as opposed to milliseconds? i.e: hours:minutes:seconds:frames
I imagine you would need to specify frame rate some where in order for time calculations to work properly.
This would be super helpful.

Nimrod_Erez
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Adding timecode support will bring over so many more users. And just for clarity, timecode support means that a cell can be edited to support timecode in a specified frame rate (23.976, 24, 29.97, 30, etc.) so any duration and calculations on timecode yield proper results. A timecode cell needs to be in a HH:MM:SS:FF format under a frame rate system (as noted above). Please bring this functionality!

Tommy_Asselin
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Hi Community,

I’m resurrecting this thread to add another precise request on the subject.

The Duration field type is nice, but it does not auto format the data typed in.

With hundreds of IN and OUT time to log from footage files, I’d love to just have to type the numeral digits without the :
So if I type 123 it logs 1:23, and if I type 10123 it log 1:01:23, for hours:minutes:seconds, etc. as it works for example in premiere or after effects when typing numbers in the timecode field.
That kind of auto-formating for timecode, with various framerates presets, would be wonderful!!

Another linked request that would be useful is to be able to import video files just to grab the metadata, without uploading gigabytes of videos, so its not necessary to type the files name, duration, source, etc. manually!

I’m still searching for something that does what I need. But still thanks for what airtable is already!

Excellent suggestions for omitting the colon and metadata import! :clap:t2: :pray:t2:

Will a formula solution suffice in the meantime? It just processes the raw text, but it might still save you some time.

IF(
    {Timecode Raw},
    REGEX_REPLACE(
        {Timecode Raw},
        REPT("(\\d{2})", (ROUND((LEN({Timecode Raw})) / 2)) - 1) & "$",
        LEFT(":$1:$2:$3", 3 * ((ROUND((LEN({Timecode Raw})) / 2)) - 1))
    )
)

Screen Shot 2021-12-16 at 10.37.44 PM

With the help of an automation that runs a script, it’s possible to translate this into inline formatting. Normally automations that act on data changes don’t wait for the user to finish editing a field, but I’ve come up with a method that actually waits.

liveFormatting

I came up with this wait-for-the-user-to-finish-editing setup a couple of months ago, but haven’t had the time yet to document and share it. I’ll probably put some time into it over the holiday break and post a new thread.