title: Is there any way of reading a timecode track of a Quicktime movie with applescript
body: <p>I want to extract the timecode from a quicktime movie in Applescript.</p>
  
  <p>By using this script</p>
  
  <pre><code>tell application "QuickTime Player"
      set themovie to open thefile
      set thetracks to tracks of document 1
      repeat with thetrack in thetracks
          if the kind of thetrack is "Timecode" then
              get the properties of thetrack
          end if
      end repeat
  end tell
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I can get the timecode track, the properties of the track are:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>{is audio variable rate:true, is video
    gray scale:false, audio sample size:0,
    class:track, audio sample rate:0.0,
    sound balance:0, preload:false,
    streaming bit rate:-1.0,
    duration:960300, language:"English",
    audio channel count:0, layer:0,
    contents:missing value, bass gain:0,
    start time:0, data format:"Timecode",
    treble gain:0, audio
    characteristic:false, sound volume:0,
    mask:missing value, video depth:0,
    position:{0, 0}, id:4, high
    quality:false, deinterlace
    fields:false, href:"", natural
    dimensions:{0, 0}, single field:false,
    kind:"Timecode", index:4, data
    size:38412, visual
    characteristic:false, data rate:100,
    never purge:false, transparency:49,
    chapterlist:{}, name:"Timecode Track",
    alternate:{}, operation color:{32768,
    32768, 32768}, enabled:true,
    type:"tmcd", streaming quality:-1.0,
    transfer mode:transfer mode unknown,
    dimensions:{0, 0}, current
    matrix:{{1.0, 0.0, 0.0}, {0.0, 1.0,
    0.0}, {0.0, 0.0, 1.0}}}</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>none of which seems to have anything to do with the timecode. Note that the contents property is "missing value"</p>
  
  <p>If I try to get the current time of the movie it returns 0, even if the timecode doesn't start at 0.</p>
  
  <p>I'm thinking by what I've found on the net so far that this is impossible. Please prove me wrong</p>
  
  <p>TIA
  -stib</p>