A non-linear editing system is a video editing or audio editing system that can perform random access on the source material.
Non-linear editing
Non-linear editing for film and television postproduction is a popular modern editing method. Video and sound are digitised to hard disks. After that, they can be manipulated with software such as Pinnacle Liquid, Avid, Final Cut Pro or Lightworks.
Compared to the linear method of tape-to-tape editing, non-linear editing offers the flexibility of film editing with random access and easy project organization. It is easy to make new versions nondestructively. Initially, only low-resolution pictures could be digitized, as storage was limited and expensive. Broadcast quality and High definition are now possible. The costs of the editing systems have dropped, bringing non-linear editing within reach of a domestic user with a good home computer.
The earliest non-linear film and video editors used laserdisc storage, but were quickly superseded by editing systems that used computer disk storage and compressed video.
The elements of a computer-based non-linear editing system for video are a computer with a video editing card or video capture card and video editing software. Digital video can be imported into the computer through a firewire (IEEE394) socket and analogue video is imported through composite sockets both of which are found on most video editing cards. Various editing tasks can then be performed on the imported video before it is saved, exported to another medium, or MPEG encoded for transfer to a DVD.
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External links
What makes for a non-linear video editing system
What is non-linear editing?