HN user
You’re likely referring to SMPTE timecode, a method of conveying timing information about a video signal (eg. HH:MM:SS:FF), which is SMPTE 12M. There are various ways that timecode is conveyed in media such as LTC (linear timecode, usually carried as an audio signal), VITC (vertical interval timecode, in the vertical blanking interval of a video signal), and others.
I was just reading about this topic last night on Maister’s Graphics Adventures: https://themaister.net/blog/2025/06. They created PyroWave, a GPU-accelerated DWT codec in Vulkan compute shaders for performing very low latency game streaming. Very fascinating read, and builds on similar work from their master’s thesis too.
What drives me crazy is that recently I had to download three separate bloated Electron app packages just to turn off the RGB in my new mobo, RAM and GPU because in 2025/26 we still don’t have vendors using a common protocol to control RGB.