Product Reviews

Do you feel like you ought to do some work on your PC, but find you're loath to tear yourself away from the TV? Don't fight it. Install a TV tuner, and you can watch telly on your computer as well - then you'll never have to move from your seat.

The VideoMate is an analogue TV tuner, so it only picks up the five basic terrestrial channels instead of the 30-odd you'd get with Freeview digital. There are two reasons you might buy an analogue tuner: because they're cheaper than digital tuners, or because you live in an area where digital TV isn't yet available.

The VideoMate is quite a good little analogue TV tuner, but installation is a bit tricky. Once you've fitted the PCI card into its slot, you have to find the connector for your PC's power-on button and plug it into

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the card. You then have to run a second cable from the card back to the connector on your motherboard from which you unplugged the power-on cable in the first place.

The idea is that you can program the card to record a TV program and then switch off your PC. The card will switch the PC back on when your TV programme is about to start. Unfortunately, the card's electronic programme guide isn't available in the UK, which means you have to schedule all recordings manually. This makes it more likely that you'll miss the start or end of a show.

Setting up the card was relatively easy. Once installed, we ran the software and scanned for channels. All five channels were found in a just couple of minutes.

The software used to control the card is easy to use - you'll quickly get the hang of it. But you don't even need to do that: all of the card's major functions can be accessed using the remote control supplied. Again, this has a fairly standard layout and is easy to use. And as well as allowing you to control the card's TV functions - both live and recorded - you can also use the remote control to watch DVDs, if you use Compro's DVD playback software.

This is a decent TV tuner for anyone who doesn't reallly want to go digital, for whatever reason. But until it has a working electronic programme guide for the UK, we can't really recommend it.