Control Track
Control Track is the sigle most important concept in video editing. In order to edit video tape, you need a consistant signal of control track underneath your video signal. Any break in this control track will render the footage unsable for editing. You also need to have at least 5 seconds of pre-roll and post-roll, that is space before and after your shot on the tape. To put control track on a blank tape you need to "Black" your tape. Simply put the tape in a deck in the edit suite, and hit record and play at the same time. (This is a crash edit). A standard method of laying "black" is to lay down 30 seconds of color bars at the head of your tape, and black for the rest.

Assemble Edit vs Insert Edit
There are 2 types of linear editing. Assemble Edit, and Insert Edit. Assmble Edit punches a hole in your control track, so it is not a recommended way of working. The benefit of an assemble edit, is it regenerates control track on your recording tape, thus you don't have to use a blacked tape to edit to. Insert edit, can only be done on a blacked tape. It allows you to do frame accuate edits on a tape.

The idea behind linear editing is to copy shots from tape (deck A or B) down to a record tape(deck R). The hard part is that you have to lay them down in order. There is no way to go back and re-order your shorts without starting over at the beginning.

A/B Roll (ACE-10 Controller)
The first machine we got to automate some of this editing for us is the ACE-10 Controller. This can control 3 decks (A,B and R) and save a list of your edits (an EDL). Click here to learn more about the ACE.

3 Point Edit (In, Out, In)
The most basic video edit is called a 3-point edit. In this mode, you would set an "IN" point on your source, an "IN" on your record deck, and then an OUT on either one. With these 3 times , the editor can make the edit and figure out the 4th time on the fly.