Abstract: In editing magnetic tape, in particular video tape, improvement in the editing taught by U.S. Pat. No. 3,787,617 is achieved by arresting the respective tapes on the edit tape deck and the source tape deck precisely at the "edit" point by observation on a monitor. The deck motors are started in reverse and the tape-feed rollers are allowed to achieve full speed; the two tapes are then engaged with the reversely-moving rollers and are driven in reverse for a precise period to establish a "pre-edit" start point. When edit is to begin, the drive motors of the respective tape decks are started to drive forward; after the rollers are up to full speed the feed rollers are engaged with the tape to drive the same forward for the precise time period corresponding to the time period of reverse drive; and thereupon the system operates to either edit at the edit point or to preview a proposed edit at the edit point.