Time display

The way you view and specify time in After Effects depends on the display style, or unit of measure, that you use to describe time. By default, After Effects displays time in Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) timecode: hours, minutes, seconds, and frames. You can change to another system of time display, such as film frames, or feet and frames of 16mm or 35mm film. See Setting time-display options.

Video-editing workstations use SMPTE timecode that is often striped (encoded) onto videotape for reference. If you are creating video that will be synchronized with video that uses SMPTE timecode, use the default timecode display style.