when you are editing in real time, what exactly does this mean vs. not real time. Does it mean you can start working and editing with whatever footage has downloaded so far, even though it is not all downloaded from your camcorder. I appreciate all the help everyone has given me over the past few weeks. Thankyou, I am learning a great deal.

Hi Steve,

Real-time can mean:

1) Any effects that need rendering will take as long as the duration for that effect to render. i.e. if you have a 30 sec timeline with an effect, then to render that effect will take 30secs to render

2) When exporting your timeline it takes however long the duration of you timeline is. i.e. if your timeline is 30secs then it will take 30secs to export

3) When applying a real-time effect, you see the effect as it happens. i.e. apply real-time effect to clip, once applied you are able to preview it instantly.

I think that explains it...

Steve: you ask an interesting question about being able to edit while footage is still being captured, but that's not something most video editing setups can do. The most common use of the term "real time" is as described in #3 of Ed's post above.

Back when computers were slower we use to talk about how long it would take to render a one-second dissolve between two standard-definition video clips before we could play the result back on the timeline to see what it looked like. Today's computers are so fast they can calculate the effect of many editing instructions without requiring any extra rendering time, so you can see your changes as soon as you make them. This is a huge benefit for video editing, because it means you don't have to sit around waiting for the computer every time you make a change.

As Ed mentioned there's also the question of how long it takes to export your video when you're finished editing. If you're exporting back to a DV camera, "real time" should mean that you can do so directly from the timeline without rendering; if you're encoding to MPEG2 for DVD, "real time" would mean you can encode one minute of your timeline in one minute.

The ultimate real time video editing system would be able to do anything you asked it to do without ever requiring you to wait for that to happen, but no editing setup can do so under all circumstances. Hence when someone (especially a software company) says they have "real time" editing you should ask exactly what that means in relation to the types of editing tasks you want to do. Some editing programs available today will allow you to view changes without waiting by reducing the quality or frame rate of the playback as needed, but that's technically "real time previewing" instead of "real time editing." Other editing solutions can generate full resolution, full frame rate playback even if you're working with high-definition or uncompressed footage, which is an impressive accomplishment. But again, no editing setup can do everything in real time, especially if you like to do extremely complex effects. So "real time" is basically a relative term, not an absolute one.

Thankyou so much Ed. Wonderful explanation.
Steve.

I appriciate the info kevin, you guys are great.
steve