To be edited, video must have a structure.

Editing Methods — Manual

There are three basic methods of controlling and editing videotape: manual, control track, and SMPTE time code.

Manual Editing

Manual editing was described in the earlier section, “The Editing Process.”You select and make edits based on visual or aural edit points. If, after prerolling both playback and record VTRs and placing them in playback mode, you decide the edit points are not coinciding as you'd like, you can abort the edit by not switching the record VTR to record mode. You can then change the amount of preroll on one or both tapes and try again. This is obviously a rather inaccurate and time-consuming way to edit, but sometimes it's the only choice.

This method of editing is almost never used today. In the earliest days of videotape editing it was the only method available. As new technologies for controlling the editing process became available and affordable, manual editing died out. It is, however, helpful to understand the process because newer edit controllers are executing the same process, but they are executing the process much more quickly and accurately.

1.  Tape generations.

2.  Tape editing.