When videotapes were first developed in the 1950s, the only way to edit was to physically cut the tape with a razor blade and splice segments together. While the footage excised in this process was not technically destroyed, continuity was lost and the footage was generally discarded. In 1963, with the introduction of the Ampex Editec, video tape could be edited electronically with a process known as linear video editing by selectively copying the original footage to another tape called a master.