On Figures 3 and 4 you see two video capture boards from different brands. The first one is from Leadtek (TV2000XP Expert), and the second one is from PowerColor (Theater 550 Pro). Installing a video capture board to a PC is very simple: open your computer (with it turned off, of couse) and install it on any empty PCI slot. External video capture boards are easier to install: just connect them to any available USB (or FireWire, depending on the model) port.

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Figure 3: Leadtek TV2000XP Expert video capture card.

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Figure 4: PowerColor Theater 550 Pro video capture card.

Internal video cards have only one input connector on them. You need to install an adapter that comes with the board that will expand this single input in several inputs. In Figure 5, you can see the Leadtek TV2000XP Expert with its adapter installed. In Figure 6 you see the adapter that came with PowerColor Theater 550 Pro.

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Figure 5: Leadtek TV2000XP Expert inputs.

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Figure 6: PowerColor Theater 550 Pro inputs.

As you can see, the connectors follow a color code:

• Yellow: Composite video.
• Red: Audio right channel.
• White: Audio left channel.

Video capture boards usually offer two options for the video input: composite video or separated video (S-Video). S-Video provides a better video quality, however home VCR systems usually don’t have a S-Video output. So you will probably have to use the composite video input, and all our explanations will consider this option. However, if your VCR has a S-Video output, please use it instead, as it will provide a better image quality.