Have you always wanted to make a rc video and have it online? or just on VHS or DVD? Well its possible. I would know I have made more then enough rc videos. In this guide you will learn how to make a great rc video step by step. Maybe you don't like my rc videos, but this guide will show you the basics on how to make your own.

First step, figure out what you want to video tape. No nonsense rc stuff is definitely no fun. No one wants to watch that stuff. Also you should see if you have a video camera around or see how good your computer is.

Analog (8mm,hi-8,vhs, vhs-c)- You need an Analog video camera and a video capture card or a video card with video in and a sound card with Audio in. I use this method to make my videos just because I have an Hi-8 camera. Your computer probably does not have these already. You will need to buy one. If you think you have one look on the back of your computer and look for a jack that looks like the back of a VCR. It might be yellow for video and red for audio. It might also say Video In on the card.

Digital (mini-dv,digital 8)- You need a digital video camera (digital 8, Mini dv,....) You also will need a firewire card. This method is the best but costly. Digital video cameras aren't cheap.

In order to transfer the video to your computer for (video editing- coming later) you will need a good computer. Here are my recommendations for a computer:

400mhz+, 20gig+ 7,200rpm hard drive, 16mb video card, ATI all-in-wonder video capture card (only needed for analog, for digital you need a firewire card), 128mb Minimum!

Get the video. Read the instructions for your video camera, learn it well and start filming. The most important part is the quality of your filming. Always have one person driving the r/c car and one person filming. Have the person change views to make it exciting and keep the lens from hitting direct sunlight. This is all very important. Also avoid a lot of In/Out zooming. You will learn all this in your camera instructions though.

Go buy Video Editing Software such as (VideoWave 5 $99, Ulead videostudio 5 $99, AdobePremeire $600) This is pretty important. I suggest VideoWave 4 since I have it, I bought it off of ebay for $40. I don't like it though because it doesn't have a timeline. Just a scoreboard. Make sure you choose your video editing software basing it on the input formats and output formats, like VideoWave does mpg, wmv, rm video formats. You can use Microsoft Movie Maker that comes with Windows ME and XP but it doesn't output in anything but WMV. Format. Lots of people like mpg format best.

Usually editing isn't all that hard. There is usually a place to capture your video using your video capture card or firewire. You pick the quality to import it in (mpg high quality). You always want to start with the best quality possible and later compress it. To cut frames you usually click on that scene in the storyboard and go to the "cutting room". There are also usually special effects and stuff. Cool stuff can be done. To add music the best way is to use a timeline. Videowave 4 doesn't have one but you can still add music with the storyboard. All of this is talked about in your manuals for your editing software so I'm not going to get any more in-depth.

When your done you "produce it". Meaning you put everything you did together and compress it for internet or whatever. You try different formats and qualities to get the best quality:size ratio. I use WMV 250 format or MPG using 50kps and 15 fps (frames per second) to keep the size down. WMV streams so its not good for some servers.

Putting it on VHS is usually easy. Just hook up your video out (on most video capture cards and some video cards) to your VCR. Then hit record on the VCR as you play it using your computer. You also need audio out for this. If you get ATI all-in-wonder you can do all of this. More explanation should come with your video editing software. The all-in-wonder card even comes with some video editing software. Not the best but it comes with it!

Want it online? A lot of you do, why not show it off to all your friends for cheaper then putting it on VHS. Actually it looks better sometimes on the computer then VHS because of the resolution of computer monitors these days, depending on how you compressed your video. Anyway the first step in this is finding good web hosting. You really need some good web hosting.

Next, upload the video to your web site. Using Cuteftp or my favorite CoffeeCup Free FTP you can find your file on your computer that you produced and then upload it. If you have a Cable modem this GREATLY helps. Since upload times are usually way slower then downloads. So like it usually takes twice as long as downloading a file that size.