EditDroid

The EditDroid is a computerized analog NLE (non-linear editing system), which was developed by Lucasfilm spin-off company, the Droid Works and Convergence Corporation who formed a joint venture company. The company existed up through the mid-80's to the early 90's in an attempt to move from analog editing methods to digital. EditDroid debuted at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) 62nd Annual meeting in Las Vegas in 1984 concurrent with another editing tool that would compete with the EditDroid for all its years in production, the Montage Picture Processor. The EditDroid was never a commercial success and after the close of The Droid Works in 1987 and subsequent redevelopment of the product for seven years, the software was eventually sold to Avid Technology in 1993. Only 24 EditDroid systems were ever produced.

The system is LaserDisc-based, relying on several LaserDisc players and a database system which queues up the clips in the order needed from the LaserDisc players in the most efficient way, so as to minimize skipping. This however isn't always possible. So if the edits aren't sufficiently close, the system isn't always fast enough to cue up the next clip.

It has three screens connected to it: one Sun-1 computer display as the graphical UI for the product, one small preview video monitor, and one large rear-projected monitor containing "the cut" which was controlled by a custom controller. The controller, called the TouchPad, features a KEM-style shuttle knob, a trackball, and a host of buttons with LED labels that changes in function depending on what the system was doing. The EditDroid pioneered the use of the graphical display for editing—introducing the timeline as well as digital picture icons to identify raw source clips.

Once the entire movie has been edited, an Edit Decision List of marked frames is turned over to a film laboratory where the actual pieces of film are spliced together in the correct order.

The EditDroid is obsolete by market standards, as the market for nonlinear editing systems has changed radically since its inception, with computer-based products like Final Cut Pro ranging entirely from the consumer to professional markets. In many respects the EditDroid was a concept demonstration of the future of editing, with a LaserDisc being a good 1980s simulation of what digital access would eventually become, and an editing interface and workflow that was more like today's methods than any of the videotape linear or analog nonlinear products leading up to the Avid/1 in 1990.

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