Keykode

A scanned image of Keykode from a piece of unexposed, developed 35 mm Eastman Kodak motion picture color negative. All of these slices are from the same side of the same piece of negative, cropped and stacked for simplicity. (A) Human-readable Keykode number (the number to the far right advances by one for each 16 frames of 35 mm film or 20 frames of 16 mm film). Next to that is the same information in USS-128 Barcode machine-readable language. (B) Further down the film (within the 16 frames) is the film identifier information and date symbol (C) Other-use symbols. This negative is from 1997. NOTE: The large white "A", "B" and "C" are NOT part of the Keykode and not part of the film, they have been added to the image here for clarification and identification purposes only.
These images show 16mm Eastman Kodak keykode (top) and Fujifilm MR-code (bottom) The Fuji example was scanned from a positive print, but it shows the codes from the negative. Neither scan shows the manufacturer's information, which is repeated every 80 frames on 16mm film. Note that the "Zero Frame" dot is placed above the first character due to the smaller size of 16mm. Both the barcode and the human-readable characters refer to the frame marked by this dot.

Keykode (also written as either KeyKode or KeyCode) is an Eastman Kodak Company advancement on edge numbers, which are letters, numbers and symbols placed at regular intervals along the edge of 35 mm and 16 mm film to allow for frame-by-frame specific identification. It was introduced in 1990.

Keykode is a variation of timecode used in the post-production process which is designed to uniquely identify film frames in a film stock.


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