An apparatus for displaying on a monitor screen of a computer either a color television picture or a black and white television picture at a frame repetition rate sufficient to show smooth motion in the displayed television picture. The apparatus digitizes an analog television signal to assemble an entire frame of digital video words in a video frame memory. After assembling the frame of digital video words, the apparatus communicates that fact to the computer, and then, responsive to a signal from the computer, transfers the entire frame of the digital video words from the video frame memory to the computer over the computer's processing bus.