Product Reviews

Digital TV on the move, or at least wherever you want to park your laptop, is what Miglia's TVBook Pro is designed to give. This is an Express Card device, so it requires a MacBook Pro to run. When the TVBook Pro is in place in the Express Card slot, a portion roughly the size of a matchbox sticks out. This contains a small light showing the operational state of the device, and a single traditional RF antenna socket.

Installing the TVBook Pro is as simple as with any other TV device. The Tube software setup takes about a minute. You can watch TV in a window from tiny to large size or scaled to full screen, and recordings can be edited and exported in various formats including ones for iPod and Sony PSP playback. The hardware simply goes into the Express Card slot and the antella lead connects to its single RF socket.

The antenna that's included is a little larger than is normally found in TV tuner products of this general type. The model that's supplied is a powered antenna, one that can improve signal quality and performance when it is plugged into a power source. There's no power adaptor included in the box, so you would be forgiven for thinking this is a bit of a cheap move. Not so; along with the card and antenna, there's a USB lead that plugs into the antenna's standard DC socket,

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providing all the power that it needs. Yes, this will shorten the battery life of the MacBook Pro a little, but the difference it makes to the TV reception is extraordinary. When testing in a location that normally gives us a 50/50 chance of getting either 'no signal' messages or choppy freeze-frame annoyance, this produced smooth, glitch-free TV reception.

Of course, if you're in an area that gets reasonably good reception anyway you may not need to power the antenna in the first place. Without a power supply the antenna functions as well as any ordinary model, and it telescopes out from 12cm to just over half a meter in length. You end up with a bit more stuff to lug around, but the Express Card device actually feels a little more secure when in place than most USB tuner devices do, and the antenna unit itself is very light.

The Tube software is more polished than when we reviewed it originally with Equinux's TubeStick and has some neat features, such as the abilty to rewind a programme to the start and begin recording - providing you had The Tube running and tuned to that channel when the programme began. However, it still lacks a proper multi-week programme guide and the ability to schedule recordings.

This device doesn't provide digital input from non-RF signal sources; there's no provision for connecting to S-Video or RCA leads. But then, it isn't billing itself as an all-round video input device. And if your video source or breakout box happens to provide RF output then you should be able to hook up with it as if it was an antenna.

For digital TV with a MacBook Pro, this is one of the best solutions we've seen. We like that it doesn't require a USB socket if reception is good, and that the antenna can be boosted with USB power if required. The external part of the TVBook Pro looks a tiny bit flimsy, but with a little care it should survive very well.