By using one of the many video capture options available, a user can capture video footage to a hard drive, bring it into the editing software, add titles, transitions, special effects, music and narration before outputting the final project to tape, DVD, or streaming video for the web. How that final video will actually look depends on several factors - and the most important factor is paying attention to detail.

Non-linear editing software packages offer a wide variety of transitions, video effects, and titling options. There is also a wide variety of additional plug-in and stand-alone programs offering still a wider variety of additional effects for use in your projects. With all that is available to the user, the sky is truly the limit, and the possibilities are nearly limitless.

Example of Non-Linear Editing Interface

In the following pages I will begin by showing you a simple way of understanding how non-linear video editing works from a beginners point of view. I will cover the basic concepts of frame resolution, color depth, aspect ratio, and image manipulation. These are all things that you should know in order to get the most out of your endeavors with non-linear video editing, and these concepts hold true whether you are using a Mac, Windows, Linux, Unix, Casablanca, or any number of stand-alone computer based video editing systems.

You're Getting a Picture - Now It's Time to "Get the Picture!"

Frame resolution is a lot less complicated than you may think. It all begins with a pixel. Resolution is described as rows and columns of pixels. The first pixel is located at the upper left corner of all computer monitors, digital pictures and video frames. This is also how the computer reads pixel that make up a picture or video frame, from the upper left corner across to the upper right corner and then progressing to the next pixel just below the upper left corner across to the right side, and so on.

Normally you see this description as [first number]x[second number]. For instance, the resolution of a digital video frame is 720x480. Starting at the upper left corner and going across to the upper right corner there are 720 pixels and the sequence is repeated toward the bottom of the frame 480 times.

The monitor in front of you is a perfect example of frame resolution, but that monitor is very different from your analog television in the way it deals with the images you see on it. At this very moment there are several resolutions available to you which are controlled by the capabilities of your VGA card and the monitor in front of you. Some people refer to the VGA card as the video card, and then they will also refer to a capture card as a video card. They are indeed not the same thing.

VGA stands for Video Graphics Adapter. This is the card in the system that allows you to view programs, files, pictures, and video clips on your monitor. Although there are combination VGA/Capture cards such as, the ATI All-in-Wonder cards, a normal VGA card will not allow you to capture video images to your system and a video capture card will not display the programs, etc. on your computer screen, or capture those images to your hard drive - there are software products available to assist you in doing that.

The VGA card coupled with a monitor will produce resolutions in line with the capabilities of the card and/or the monitor proper. The capabilities of a VGA card are governed by the amount of on board RAM. In the old days anything over 1MB was considered really good. It was common to see cards boasting 4MB, 8MB, or 16MB's of RAM. When they reached 32MB everyone who had one bragged about it!

Today it is commonplace for VGA cards to have anywhere from 128MB to 512MB of RAM onboard. But, having a large amount of RAM on your VGA card will do you little good if the monitor you are using is not capable of displaying certain resolutions. Many of the LCD flat panel screens you see are limited in their display capabilities, which can be frustrating when using certain video editing programs. Understanding resolutions can save you a whole lot of frustration, particularly when dealing with high definition video.

Resolution is the size of the overall amount of display area. Common resolutions are 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, etc. The smaller the monitor resolution, the larger things appear on your screen and vice-versa. These common resolutions are all in the 4:3 aspect ratio - meaning that they can be divided horizontally by 4 and vertically by 3 to arrive at a common number. Divide any one of the above resolutions in this manner and you will see exactly what I am saying, which brings us to the matter of "full screen video" - as it relates to standard definition video.

The resolution of full screen video has very little to do with those computer monitor resolutions mentioned earlier in this article, and as stated earlier - resolutions for a computer monitor are very different from those displayed on your television. The greatest common denominator has been the aspect ratio used by these display devices, until the advent of high definition video.