You are probably going to find two types of time code, on is
SMPTE which typically is from the video world or the audio world that needs to sync to video.
You have really in
NTSC videdo 29.97 frames per second, and typically on video
ntsc you will have what is called
Drop Frame TIME CODE *you can tell by the fact that instead of a : there is a ; before the frames, this allows frame time to match up with wall time.
In
PAL land, you have 25 FSP, and typically in film you have 24 fps there are a few oddities like on a HD dvd created from a film the time code will actually be 23.97, to allow it to be broadcast. You will have all sorts of pull up and
pull down things to allow broadcast and film and audio to all work together in the US.
Pal and Film world is pretty straight forward
ALSO you have
Midi Time Code, this is not as high a resolution as
SMPTE but very common in audio applications. You only get full time code every two frames in
Midi time code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_timecode
Sharyn