Online Versus Offline

With the transition from linear tape-to-tape editing studios to computer-based nonlinear editing systems over the past decade, editors just entering the industry are somewhat unfamiliar with the terms online editing and offline editing. In the past, people were forced to assemble a rough cut of their project offline on lower-end systems. When they were ready with the basis of their program, they could move into studios with very pricey equipment to perform their online edit at the highest quality with all the finishing touches. Improvements in the quality of video capture cards, high-speed hard drives, editing software, and output controls from computers, along with continuously falling equipment prices, have made it possible for more people to perform their own online editing sessions all on one system (finishing your project on the same computer on which you do your offline edit). Premiere is one of these programs that can be integrated into a consumer editing system for editing home movies. It is also powerful enough to be used in professional environments, as shown in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1. Premiere is being used in today's top professional nonlinear editing studios.

Online editing studios were generally filled with millions of dollars worth of professional tape decks, switchers, edit controllers, and special-effects generators. The cost to put a system like this together and the time and knowledge to get the setup working properly were enormous. Therefore, studio owners needed to charge high prices to rent out a room like this for the day in order to recoup some of their investment. The only way to allow people to edit videos yet not sell off their firstborn was to configure lower-priced equipment setups that offered a chance to create a rough version of their project with minimal features. This is what is called offline editing, in which you save time and money rough-cutting a project and then finish it at an online studio. Generally with offline editing, you do not edit your final master at the highest quality with all the finishing touches added to the project.

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Codec stands for compression/decompression. Codecs are small engine-like applications that mathematically reduce the file size of your source footage. Examples of codecs include Cinepak and Sorenson. One drawback of compression is that the image quality is generally reduced as well. Some codecs have minimal image quality loss, but others make the image become extremely poor in quality.

With the advent of computer-based editing, producers and editors began using these applications to edit their programs. The one major problem was the quality of the video. The systems could not capture and play back high-quality video full-screen and full-motion. This resulted in very pixelated footage. The video sources had to be compressed (using various codecs) to play back the footage. Today, drastic changes in technology allow producers to edit their final versions directly on a computer, providing the same (if not better) quality and features that were offered in those pricey studios. Many times, producers choose to skip the offline steps and jump right into their online editing sessions. The tools are so cost-effective and provide more flexibility than any of the previous online rooms that it makes sense to dive right in.

The methodology has changed to some degree. Now people generally think of the difference between online and offline editing according to which resolution you use when digitizing your source footage. Low resolutions are associated with offline editing, whereas high resolutions are used to finish your online mix. The advantage of editing a project at low resolution first is that you do not fill up your hard drives with high-quality source footage that might not be used in your final edit. The ideal editing situation, if you have timecoded source material and remote edit control of your decks (which isn't available on consumer decks), is to digitize your source material at low resolution, rough-cut your sequence, and redigitize only the portions of the clips used in your sequence at high resolution.

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Due to the inherent nature of DV compression, true DV clips are always considered online.