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What is a Video Capture Card?Why do you need it?A Video Capture Card is an electronic device used for sending audio and video signals from external devices such as TVs, DVD players, VCRs, etc. They are available in FireWire (IEEE 1394), USB and PCI formats. Video signals from these devices are routed to your computer via USB, Composite, S-Video or RF cables and stored on your PC's hard drive. All this processing is achieved with the help of video capture software. Video capture cards are varied and have different functions. To capture video from a camcorder, FireWire is the recommended port because of its fast transfer speed. Capturing TV is achieved through the use of the USB or PCI interface. Such an interface allows you to turn your computer into a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) or PVR (Personal Video Recorder). You are able to time-shift by playing and pausing live TV and schedule recordings of TV shows thus emulating TiVo. These cards are either internal or external - PCI being internal and USB external and have varying inputs and outputs. These inputs/outputs are either Composite, S-Video or RF. After acquiring all this hardware you can now use your bundled software to capture TV or video and save them to video CDs or DVDs.
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