MIDI Time Code (MTC)
SMPTE timecode translated into MIDI messages, so a sequencer can chase a video deck in hours and frames rather than bars and beats.
MIDI clock knows how fast things are going, not where they are. MTC was added to the MIDI specification in 1987 to fill that gap. Position travels in short quarter-frame messages, status byte F1 plus one data byte, each carrying one eighth of the full time: the low nibble of frames, the high nibble of frames, and so on up to hours. Eight messages make a complete timestamp, sent at four per frame.
Because a full value only arrives every two frames, the receiver is always two frames behind and has to extrapolate. When the tape jumps, a SysEx full-frame message delivers the whole time at once. Most syncing now happens inside a DAW, but MTC lives on in lighting desks, stage automation and older studio gear.