Back by popular demand: Rob's Timecode Calculator

Back in late October when Current360 rebranded to its current form, we received an interesting email. Interesting to me, mostly. It was from a Production Assistant on a Food Network show named Ally who wanted to know where “Rob’s Timecode Calculator” was. When we switched domains over, this web-app was apparently overlooked.
Rob’s Timecode Calculator was a project I started in 2007 and have been revising ever since. It stemmed from a need to be able to do quick calculations on timecode that was not being met by other free timecode calculators on the market. In fact, at the time, there were very few timecode calculators out there, particularly one that would let you enter in timecode however you wanted. Most of these apps forced you to enter in the formatted timecode. What I wanted was to be able to type in 112, and have the app understand that I was entering in 00:00:01;12. Having spent a number of years as a web developer and programmer, including in the interactive department here at C360, I like to occasionally get back into scripting, so this was the perfect project. So, after a lot of trial and error, I created it, and promoted it in a few forums at creativecow.net and Linkedin.
For years, I assumed that I was the only one who ever used it, until we received the inquiry from Ally. In a brief correspondence with her, she told me the reason she used it was because “you don’t have to add all the semi-colons and extra 0s (when you’re adding up hundreds of time-codes that can get way tedious!).” Then, a few weeks ago, I was asked if I knew what the most visited page on our company’s website was. I figured it was one of the kick-ass videos we’ve made over the years, or the Chicken Dance and/or Polka Hero interactive games we did for littlegerman.com.
It turns out that Rob’s Timecode Calculator is the most visited page on current360.com‘s site. In fact, if you Google “timecode calculator,” it is the second link on the page! What is even more interesting is that the average length of stay on Rob’s Timecode Calculator is around 3 seconds, which I interpret as a lot of people, like me, go to the timecode calculator, do their calculation and scoot. This means that it works exactly as intended – a very gratifying conclusion.
Now if only I can generate the same kind of buzz for the barndoors script I wrote for After Effects!