Online video editing may finesse things, but offline video editors build it from the ground up. Here is a look at the process of going from an offline editor to an online editor and what they each do.
The shift from linear to non-linear video editingplatforms was not entirely seamless. Non-linear video editing treated editing like media management: the film or tape was digitized and arranged and altered non-destructively within a piece of software. This made editing much more user friendly and creatively intuitive, but it did not always work as fast as many people hoped. Today, the software has taken major leaps and bounds, but it still often cannot handle a major project in real time. A big project, such as a feature film shot on a high end camera, is going to have video files that are so numerous and large in their original form that it would be hard to have a computer handle real time editing of that footage. To deal with this, the workflow has been divided into two parts: offline video editing and online video editing.
Two Stages
The basic premise of offline video editing is that the video files are digitized and downgraded for the offline editor, and they are then able to edit the project with the lower resolution footage. The offline editor is actually the primary creative editor, arranging scenes and segments in the way that they will appear in the film. The major choices, the decisions about takes, and the overall structure of the film is done by the offline editor. Since they can essentially edit quickly, in real time, and on a normal computer, they are able to experiment and try things out.
The offline vs online process is actually quite different. The online video editor brings the full size footage “online,” working with the real files as they are. The online editor takes the edit that has been completed by the online editor and then reconnects the footage to the full quality video file, which can sync up well as long as the footage was captured first and then had the resolution downgraded just for speed of editing. The edit that was then originally done with lower resolution footage is then just simply upgraded, now referencing the full resolution original footage rather than just the lower resolution copy. The online video editor then works on the very fine edits, and is the last person who works with the footage. Since they can see the full size video they can see where tiny cuts, down to seconds and even frames, are to be made, and they make sure that the offline edit comes forward correctly and cleanly. They are going to have to work on both a high quality computer with server access, as well as have an eye for details rather than the big picture.
Kwolanne 
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