Re-recording is the act of using a save state while recording a tool-assisted speedrun

Tool-assisted speedrun

A tool-assisted speedrun is a speedrun movie or performance of a video game produced by means of emulation and using features unavailable to regular players, such as slow motion or frame-by-frame advance of the gameplay, and re-recording of previous portions of a performance...

 ; by loading a saved version of a prior machine state during the emulation, the movie that is being recorded will be trimmed

Trim (programming)

In programming, trim or strip is a common string manipulation function which removes leading and trailing whitespace from a string.For example, the text' this is a test 'would be changed, after trimming, to'this is a test'-Variants:...

 to the point in time at which this prior state was current, allowing one to continue recording the movie from that point. One of such occurrences is called a re-record or undo. It is used mainly to correct errors in the making of tool-assisted speedruns, and can only be done with an emulator

Emulator

In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...

 that supports the use of save states while recording the player's input.

Usage

If one is recording a tool-assisted speedrun movie, the player might want to save the state of the emulated machine before attempting to commit a difficult task in the game, as there is a considerable chance that the player will make a mistake — whether by failing to complete the task or by not doing it as efficiently as he would like, as a common goal in the making of these runs is to attain the best possible game. If the player does make a mistake, he may simply load the saved state to try again ; the movie will be rewound to the point where he saved the state of the machine and everything that he has done beyond that point will be deleted, allowing him to try again. Most creators of tool-assisted speedruns use several save states rather than just one, depending on the complexity of the game. The player might decide that even though he has satisfactorily played the game up to a certain point, he would be able to play it even faster by going very far back to correct an early mistake or change the route that he is taking through the game.

This is not the only method to correct potential errors, however, as the player may stop recording the movie at any time to replay it from the beginning, allowing him to restart his recording progress from any point, since tool-assisted speedrun movies can always be edited after they have been made.

See also

• Tool-assisted speedrun
  Tool-assisted speedrun
  A tool-assisted speedrun is a speedrun movie or performance of a video game produced by means of emulation and using features unavailable to regular players, such as slow motion or frame-by-frame advance of the gameplay, and re-recording of previous portions of a performance...
  
   — a speedrun in which one uses tools such as slow motion and re-recording
• Speedrun
  Speedrun
  A speedrun is a play-through, or recording thereof, of a whole video game or a selected part of it performed with the intent of completing it as fast as possible, optionally under certain prerequisites, mainly for the purposes of entertainment and competition...
  
   — play-through of a computer or video game, in which the whole game or a select part of it, such as a single level
  Level (computer and video games)
  A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...
  
  , is played with the intent of completing it as quickly as possible, optionally with certain prerequisites