Overview

Today, with the acceptance of disk-based storage for a variety of applications, the boundaries between the modern on-line editing system and any of the vast number of off-line editing devices are in actuality just a fuzzy line.

Most of the definitions that are now common household terminology came straight out of the manufacturers' marketing efforts. Manufacturers coined phrases like "non-linear," "digital," "random access," and the like, turning them into broad definitions that really pointed to their own specialized products.

This was not necessarily bad, as the production industry ate it up. Operators could provide new services, have "gee-whiz" tools, and in turn expand business in directions previously not possible. All they had to do was convince the paying producers that this saved time, was cool, and was the "wave of the future."

"Avid" eventually became the household name for non-linear editing systems, following in the footsteps of "ADO," which was patented by Ampex and came to be the name used for nearly every digital picture manipulating device. How about the Chyron, a universal word for all electronic character generators yet does anyone remember the impact Vidifont had? Looking back, it seems obvious that the word "non-linear" referred to anything other than a linear editing process. As capabilities grew and systems began to come to market, some manufacturers put a steep price on defining just how far the term nonlinear could be stretched. Some looked at the application perspective first, rather than the physical system that might be...