Linear video editing

Linear video editing is a video editing post-production process of selecting, arranging and modifying images and sound in a predetermined, ordered sequence. Regardless of whether it was captured by a video camera, tapeless camcorder, or recorded in a television studio on a video tape recorder (VTR) the content must be accessed sequentially. For the most part video editing software has replaced linear editing.

Until the advent of computer-based random access non-linear editing systems (NLE) in the early 1990s, "linear video editing" was simply called "video editing".

Live television is still essentially produced in the same manner as it was in the 1950s, although transformed by modern technical advances. Before videotape, the only way of airing the same shows again was by filming shows using a kinescope, essentially a video monitor paired with a movie camera. However, kinescopes (the films of television shows) suffered from various sorts of picture degradation, from image distortion and apparent scan lines to artifacts in contrast and loss of detail. Kinescopes had to be processed and printed in a film laboratory, making them unreliable for broadcasts delayed for different time zones.

The primary motivation for the development of video tape was as a short or long-term archival medium. Only after a series of technical advances spanning decades did video tape editing finally become a viable production tool, up to par with film editing.

The first widely accepted video tape in the United States was 2 inch Quadruplex videotape and traveled at 15 inches per second. To gain enough head-to-tape speed, four video recording and playback heads were spun on a head wheel across most of the two-inch width of the tape. (Audio and synchronization tracks were recorded along the sides of the tape with stationary heads.) This system was known as Quad, for quadruplex recording.

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