Customer Reviews

Timeline

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a remarkably well-researched, exhaustively written story of editing, going back to the 1920s and moving across the next century as the world of film and TV moved from film and cement to digital files and computers.

Many important names in the history of videotape, camera technology, production, and post-production appear throughout the book -- many with some remarkable stories to tell about the sometimes-accidental nature of great inventions that led to many lucky accidents. Ampex, Grass Valley, Avid, Final Cut Pro are all there, along with older names that provide great nostalgia to anyone who was there, including Montage, Editdroid, Ediflex, Media 100, and many others, along with a bewildering array of now-obsolete video formats, including 2" quadraplex, 3/4" U-Matic, 1" C, and several others that are now merely quaint footnotes in technological history.

Author John Buck has managed to track down many (if not most) of the individuals who were there as these devices were created, and some of their stories are hilarious, sad, and inspiring -- sometimes all three at once. I think the book could benefit from an editor; it's probably too long by a factor of 50%, but I can't deny there was a lot of terrific information, much of which I saw myself throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. If nothing else, it'll give modern-day editors a historical perspective on *why* and *how* editing systems developed over time, and why the ease of a $500 modern digital editing system did not appear overnight.

This is a great resource on the history of editing video/film. Unfortunately it gets too bogged down in people in a lot of places and some material is repeated. Nicely organized foot notes but some assertions aren't adequately supported. e.g. Fairchild was not the only company doing work in the early days of transistors--GE, Gruman, and others were also prominent in the germanium days and TI produced the first silicon transistor. AFAIK Fairchild did originate "Would you call a cross dressing nun a transsister?".

There are a lot of annoying typos in the book which is why I didn't give it a 4 star rating.

Rather specialized but by far the most comprehensive account of the early days. Pretty much stops at the founding of AVID.

In 1983 as I was following the career path of a film editor I came in contact with new world of digital editing. John Buck has done a tremendous job of fleshing out the story of the pioneering companies and engineers who dedicated themselves to supporting the art of editing.

I thought I had a pretty good handle on the evolution of digital media, but Mr. Buck has shown me a world far beyond my editing room, into kitchens and converted warehouses were obsessive video geeks banged out code, and into boardrooms where gamblers bet on technology that was only a dream. I didn't realize how many of the systems I used for cutting TV had gone through mass transformations as manufacturers gave up on products and others bought them up. It was very expensive to do the necessary R & D to bring systems like Ediflex, Montage, Final Cut Pro and Avid to the small specialized market of editing. Big companies like Orrox and Ampex had limited success, little start-ups ruled the day. John Buck captures the story well.

Timeline and Timeline 2 are good books to read if you want to understand the engineering that got us to today's modern digital editing systems.

John Buck's books is a fairly well researched look at the editing industry from an insider's perspective. He covers it from cave-painting s to nonlinear. There is almost too much information, but if you were a part of things in the nonlinear era, you will definitely find it most interesting.

Fascinating book to read - see the career road Randy Ubillos took to be the guy who stood next to Steve Jobs showing iPads and doing a demo of new version of iMovie