Nonlinear Editing
Video editing process has been improved with nonlinear editing. Nonlinear editing software are available at CIT Multimedia Development Lab

To understand how a nonlinear editing system works, it's helpful to first imagine a kind of word processor that's been designed to create video. In the nonlinear process, video clips are captured (digitised) onto a computer hard drive, whereupon the clips can be organised and played back in any order.

For this reason, nonlinear editing (NLE) facilitates a work process where a finished program can be gradually massaged into its finished form, with changes possible at any point in the process. Another advantage is that lowered video quality over multiple generations is minimised with an NLE. The process of digitising video is much 'cleaner' than the process of copying from tape-to-tape. If you wish, finished programs can even "skip a generation" with distribution copies being made directly from the computer. One drawback to computer-based NLEs is that they can often be difficult to use. Historically, software for computer-based NLEs have been designed for professional video editors.

However, new releases of NLE software have given users more flexibility in the video editing process, to the extent that even students are able to create and edit their own video without any professional help.

CIT's NLE Suite

CIT's MDL is equipped with six-medium-range NLE suite (workstation), installed with Adobe Premier.

Other NLE software available at the MDL are Macromedia and Ulead. Students and staff are free to walk in to use these facilities.

This article first appeared at http://www.draco.com.