Real World Digital Video, Second Edition

Nonlinear Editing Basics

As we said in the chapter introduction, we don't propose to give you a tutorial on video editing techniques. Experienced media professionals won't need one, and beginners will require far more than one section of one chapter.

But if you're new to this game, here's a quick overview, an introductory survey like those “appreciation courses” they give to nonmajors in college. Rather than teaching you which button to press or which command to use, we'll concentrate on what you can do—not how to do it. And we'll include a few basic tips to help you get started.

There's very little difference between the way the various desktop systems perform basic NLE techniques, but since the authors used the Final Cut Pro program to edit ...