What are the differences between linear editing and non?

[GabeB]

What are the differences between linear editing and non-linear editing? I wonder what I am missing out on that the pros are using. How does it help quality?

[Poplar]

Linear Editing: simple cut. Nothing else.
NLE: everything imaginable.
Don't know what quality you are referring to. That depends how you render it.

[Steve Stepoway]

In a linear system (for video it would be either 2 or 3 tape decks; 1 or 2 source, and 1 record; if you have 2 source, you can do fades & dissolves, if only 1 source, you must do straight cuts only), you record to the output deck each shot, in the order you want them to appear in the final video. If you decide later that the 3rd shot should be half a second shorter, you have to rerecord everything starting at that point. Very tedious, very time-consuming, and so very limiting. I've worked on them -- it's a pain in the butt to go back & change things. But that's what you get with a tape-to-tape system.

In a NLE (computer) system, you can change any part of the video at any time, without having to regenerate the whole thing, until you are happy with it. Then render.

There's no image quality difference if you've got good hardware (we're talking video here, not something that started on film; that's a different story), but you've got the flexibility to try many more options in editing. You can cut the final video many ways, trying many options, very quickly. In a linear system you don't (I didn't say can't), since it is so time consuming to go back & regenerate the whole video.