You teach the RCA the command from your remote (so that when you press power on your VCR it changes to the VCR input). It does come with prebuilt RCA codes but no remote (since it is meant to work with your remote). The only problem is that if it looses power it also loses the codes, so you have to teach it the codes again (except if you use the inbuilt codes).

Here is a link directly on Sima's site to the SVS-4 [Link: simacorp.com]