Control track

A control track is a track that runs along an outside edge of a standard analog videotape (including VHS). The control track encodes a series of pulses, each pulse corresponding to the beginning of each frame. This allows the video tape player to synchronize its scan speed and tape speed to the speed of the recording. Thus, the recorded control track defines the speed of playback (e.g. SP, LP, EP, etc.), and it is also what drives the relative counter clock that most VCRs have.