Corporate Media Production, 2nd Edition

Nonlinear Editing

As mentioned in Chapters 26 and 27, the editing process has undergone major changes during the past decade. The basis for these changes has grown out of the ability to digitize video signals, compress those dig- itized signals, and store them on computer hard drives. With this ability, analog signals that are bound by the laws of electromechanical physics have become, to use a well-worn computer term, “ones and zeros.” And what advantage has that given us?

A NONLINEAR ANALOGY

To understand the answer in editing terms, let’s first use an analogy. Imagine a writer who authors large docu- ments. He works on a typewriter. ...