Video Editing Without Software (page 2)

Most consumer camcorders are fitted with flying erase heads, and all but the cheapest ones will function as VCRs. By using your camcorder as the assembly deck (instead of using it as the source deck,) you can make rainbow-free edits.

To take advantage of these features (and other features built into your camcorder like fade and wipe transitions) simply cable your editing setup in reverse (Figure 4).

Using your camcorder as the assembly deck works well with VHS or VHS-C. This is because you can play the camcorder's tape and the final edited tape in your home deck.

This process is more difficult with 8mm and Hi8 format camcorders. Your regular VHS deck can't play tapes from these formats. To edit on you camcorder, you must:

• Copy your original footage to a VHS tape for playback in your home deck. This is a second generation tape, and suffers a loss of quality.
• Plug your camcorder into your TV to play the final edited tape.

But if you shoot 8mm, you are probably already playing tapes back from your camcorder, so this slight inconvenience won't bother you.

As long as you are willing to use these tips when crash cutting, you can have decent-looking, glitch-free edits--without buying any new equipment.

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