A/B Roll Editing; Titles - Videonics MX-1 Instruction Manual

VIDEONICS DIGITAL VIDEO MIXER

A/B Roll Editing

The most complex case is editing scenes from multiple sources. In this
case, it is the job of a device called an A/B roll edit controller (or your job, if
you're doing it manually) to synchronize the sources so they are correctly
timed. It's also your job, while shooting or when making working copies, to
make sure any two scenes you plan to use for transitions are on different
tapes — you can't wipe from scene 1 to scene 2 if both are on the same tape.
Typically, you would record a countdown before each scene so you know
when it will start and back-time the transitions accordingly. Example: Scene 1
is playing on VCR A. You know it ends soon so you start VCR B. You pause B
at a point 5 seconds before its action begins. When A is 5 seconds from its end,
you release B. Now both are rolling and at the right instant, you perform the
transition. This is what an A/B roll edit controller does.
Another method involves the use of working copies. You copy your
original footage to new tapes, placing every other scene on a different tape.
The net result would look like this:
are laid down accurately so that both tapes can simply roll
from the beginning and as a scene is about to end, the next
scene will be available. When a transition will be used be-
tween scenes, the scenes are overlapped accordingly.
The advantage of this method is that it makes it easy to get exactly what
you want on tape. It has two disadvantages: It requires careful planning and
organization; and it requires an extra "generation" — productions are a copy
of a copy rather than a copy of the original.

Titles

As explained in Chapter 4, "Connecting Editing Equipment," a title gen-
erator capable of superimposing titles on video can be connected between the
Mixer's output and the Record VCR. Titles can be superimposed over the
output, including transitions.
Here's an example using the Videonics TitleMaker. Set up a number of
titling pages. Between each page, set up a blank page (a page with no titles
and the background set to plain video). While a blank page is displayed, the
output is unaffected. Press PLAY on the TitleMaker and the next page of titles
will appear, superimposed over the Mixer's output. You can perform a
transition and the titles will continue to be superimposed as the transition
occurs.
A 1
B
Scene 1 is on tape A, scene 2 is on tape B, etc. The scenes
3
2
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