A system and method synchronizes a digitizer clock of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) device with a system clock of an imaging device. In a first method, an original reference signal is split into first and second reference signals in which the second reference signal is phase shifted to generate an orthogonal reference signal. A reliability of image data may be determined based upon a product between the first reference signal and the orthogonal reference signal. In a second method, a reference signal is transmitted from the imaging device to the MRI device and a return signal is received from the MRI device to the imaging device. A discrepancy between the digitizer clock and the system clock may be determined based upon the return signal which includes a variable time delay.