Video Editing Equipment

Sure, you can make good videos "in the camera," without ever taking a single step into the realm of post-production. But if you want to take your videos to the next level of quality and professionalism, you have to edit. This may sound like a simple over generalization, but try to imagine what movies would be like if Hollywood moviemakers left their films unedited. Or just remember the last time you tried to get your family to sit still while you fast-forwarded through the boring parts of your latest epic. What you need is an edit controller: a simple device that allows you to easily cut out the bad parts and combine footage from more than one master tape. Here you'll learn what features to look for in an edit controller; then use the accompanying buyer's guide to check out the models currently available.

Luckily, professionals discovered the power of editing early in moving film's history. With film, editing involves physically cutting and pasting together strips of raw film footage. With videotape, you need to copy selected raw footage to another tape.

If you don't want to spend any money, you can use your existing camcorder and VCR, combined with your fingers and a sense of timing, for the time-honored "two-finger edit controller." This involves pushing and releasing the pause buttons on two VCRs (or a camcorder and VCR) with your two index fingers, timing each edit visually as you watch the scenes on a monitor.

However, the two-finger approach has its downside in quality. Full-motion video rolls off the tape at 30 fps (frames per second). If you miss your edit mark by even a fraction of a second, your edit will be jumpy. This is why serious hobbyists and professional videographers use video edit controllers.

An edit controller is a device that allows you to control two or more video decks, plus other equipment such as an SEG (special effects generator) or a titler, at one time. This allows for precise control of the start and stop buttons to give you the power to make your video jump-free and professional-looking.

Don't mistake an SEG for an editor. While an SEG can put fades, wipes, titles or other special effects into your video, it usually does not control the starting and stopping of the tape.

Video edit controllers can be either computer-controlled devices or stand-alone units. Don't confuse a computer-based edit controller with a nonlinear editor. Where computer-based edit controllers take charge of two or more VCRs for editing, a nonlinear editor actually digitizes the video footage. In a nutshell, this means that the computer power necessary to run an edit controller is much less than that necessary for a nonlinear system.

A video edit controller works by taking control of your playback and record VCRs. To do this, it needs to communicate with them somehow, in order to send the commands for pause, record, fast-forward, rewind, etc. A protocol is the method of communication between the separate pieces of equipment. Be careful to choose an edit controller that uses the same protocols as your camcorders and/or VCRs. The most popular protocols are Control-S (or synchro edit), Control-L (or LANC), Control-M (or Panasonic 5-pin), RS-422, RS-232, and IR (infrared).

Some edit controllers only use the IR remote sensor of your VCR to communicate. This is handy because they work with most VCRs, but the accuracy of the edit cannot be as precise as those systems that use a cable to communicate. The rest of the protocols use a cable that allows the edit controller to talk to the VCR; all but Control-S also allow the VCR to talk to the edit controller. This bi-directional feature is most important with equipment that uses time code.

What is time code? It is a system of numbering the frames of a videotape in hours:minutes:seconds:frames for increased accuracy in the editing process. (See "Time Code is on Your Side," September, 1997 and "Edit Suite" in this issue.) If your camcorder and VCR use time code, you want to be sure your edit controller supports the same kind of time code.

The most universal of the time codes is SMPTE, which stands for Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Some consumer-level 8mm video equipment uses a time code called RCTC or Rewritable Consumer Time Code. Some S-VHS equipment uses a version of SMPTE known as VITC or Vertical Interval Time Code.

Most editors use some form of an edit decision list (EDL) to program a number of edits in advance. Every time you want the record deck to start or stop recording, for example, you add another entry to the EDL. The more entries that are available in an editor's EDL, the more edits you can make at one time. Keep in mind that the editors that do not use time code can allow the playback and record decks of your system to get slightly out of sync if you try to make a complicated EDL. If you're working without time code, it is often best to simplify your edits and not try and do too many at one time.