Choosing the top grades of video tape at each stage is another way in which we can help to minimize the loss of quality. The better the tape, the better the original recording, or the more accurately it can record from the source tape. Com¬pared with the amount of time you can waste at the editing stage, even top-priced tapes are cheap.

One advantage that video has is that it is possible to record over it time and time again. So in editing, you record a section at a time, and then check that you have recorded the exact piece you require. If the section starts at slightly the wrong point, you can then re-record this scene then and there.

When editing, it is especially important to be able to find the exact point on both source and record tapes where a particular scene begins or ends. For this reason enthusiasts will use special VCRs which have fine transport controls. For example, a typical edit-grade VCR will have a jog/shuttle dial. This has two concentric dials. The outer one (the shuttle dial) will give fast forward and rewind control at progressive speed the more you turn it. The inner jog dial is the fine control, allowing you to progress through the tape a single frame at a time. VCRs of this kind are also available in the S-VHS, 8mm and Hi8 formats.

The source and record machines can be continually without any other equipment.

However, being able to synchronize the two machines so that you record the exact scene you want requires a high degree of manual dexterity.

With practice, this manual method is fine for simple editing where you have only a few scenes to rearrange. But with more complex edits, involving maybe, hundreds of scenes such as in our rock video, you need some automatic help. This is where the edit controller comes in. It memorizes the in and out points that you pin¬point as you watch the original tape, and then copies them all across slavishly when you say so. It will synchronize the start of the two machines, allowing for backspace editing, in a far more consistent way than you can ever hope to achieve manually. What s more a good edit controller gives you a read-out of these in/out points, called an edit decision list. You can then move scenes around, and alter their lengths to get the result you want.