Tune in, turn on ... watch telly

With more and more of us living in small flats or houses where space is at a premium, most of us will have made room for a PC and one television but perhaps not a second.

This isn't a problem until there comes a time when there are two programmes on at the same time. Your PC has a screen so why not use that to watch TV on as well?

While you're watching, you could also write a letter or surf the internet. You can even record programmes and some devices can effectively turn your PC into a VCR.

You needn't take your PC apart either as there are several external USB options that are very straightforward to install and can also be used on a notebook PC.

Probably the best reason is that many of the cards and devices available enable you to get the latest Freeview digital channels just by plugging in your existing TV aerial.

Some of the devices can be used with a television as well, giving you the option of either using your PC or your TV as normal.

External devices
Digital TV is all the rage and it's now possible to receive it on your PC as well as your TV. In fact the DEC 2000-t (£129) from Hauppauge works in both ways.

Similar to a set-top box, the DEC 2000-t can be connected to a regular TV using the supplied SCART cable; but it can also link to your PC with its own USB port. This makes it ideal for notebook PCs, since you don't need to open up your PC to install it.

As with other devices for digital TV, the DEC 2000-t allows you to view all the free-to-air channels, but it has fewer features than some units and it doesn't support digital text.

If you just want digital TV on your PC then Hauppauge's WinTV Nova-t USB (£99) is one of the best ways of getting it. As it's a USB device, installation is simple and the supplied software works well.

As well as watching, you can also record programmes in MPEG-2 and pause live broadcasts. If you intend to do a lot of recording, you will need a large hard disk as one hour of TV takes up around 1.8GB.

Internal devices
If you don't mind opening up your PC, internal tuner cards are an alternative. The Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250 (£159) can pause and then resume live television, as well as set it to record a show at a later date, just like a VCR.

To do this, it stores the programme in a buffer and the amount of time you can pause for depends on the quality level you choose and the size of your hard disk. The higher the quality, the more room you'll need.

Setting up the device is straightforward, but we found the image quality wasn't as good as with a digital receiver. On the upside, it comes with a handy remote control but overall, is a little expensive.

The WinTV Go (£40) is the most basic of WinTV cards from Hauppauge. In addition to viewing, you can take still images from programmes and record what you're watching, as well as read Teletext pages.

It doesn't offer much, but if all you want to do is to occasionally watch some TV on your PC and do some limited recording, then it could be ideal.

The PCTV Rave (£30) by Pinnacle is very similar to the WinTV Go. Although a basic card, it does have a few features that are worth mentioning, such as Teletext. Called WebText, you view it through your internet browser.

When it came to tuning, the Pinnacle card was a little disappointing. Where the Hauppauge cards could find all five channels, the PCTV Rave could only manage two when using the same aerial, despite repeated scans.

The Pinnacle PCTV Pro (£70) is a step up from the Rave model. As well as the Teletext and recording features, it has time shifting, an FM radio and a remote control.

Time shifting means that you can pause live broadcasts. If you want to keep something that you've recorded, you can then use the software to record it on to either a CD or DVD.

The only disappointment with the PCTV Pro, as with the Rave, is that it struggled to pick up all the available terrestrial channels and there are too many options when tuning.

Sparkle's Hyperion Extreme TV (£30) has few remarkable features and it also has one of the most annoying tuning procedures. After several attempts to tune in any channels, it did manage to find all the main channels.

However, saving them proved another matter. Having crashed, it needed retuning and then could only manage to find duplicates of one channel.

It is the only one to include an FM aerial and standalone radio software though, which in fact works better than the TV tuner. Although the images, once tuned, are good enough, getting them is quite a pain. Unless you want a good FM tuner, steer clear.

AGP graphics cards
Apart from external USB devices and internal TV cards, the other option is to have an AGP graphics card that includes TV reception capabilities.

In the case of Creative's 3D Blaster Personal Cinema (£199) package, this is in two parts, a graphics card and then an external tuner box, which means you don't need to root around behind the PC to plug things in.

A downside of a combined graphics card is performance. Creative has addressed this by incorporating what is in effect an nVidia GeForce 2 MX400 card. Although not the most up to date, it will provide enough performance for occasional gamers.

With the external tuner box, as well as TV, you can also connect VCRs, DVD players or games consoles, as well as a television and to speakers.

Unlike most of the cards, to view TV programmes you have to use a special version of InterVideo's WinDVR software, which isn't made that clear in the manual. Tuning was excellent though, with good pictures and audio on all the available terrestrial channels.

LCD TV
One further way of watching TV on your PC is have an LCD monitor with a TV tuner built in, such as the R-E15LA30 by LG.

Although you invariably get a better picture than with a TV card, you don't get features such as being able to record or take snapshots, as they are more like a television that plugs into your PC than an integral part of your PC. For a 15in TFT LCD, it's expensive too, at around £675.

Making the most of your tuner card
1. It may seem odd to watch TV programmes on your PC if you already have a TV, but if you don't have room for a second or even third set, adapting your PC could be ideal.

2. Many of the TV tuning devices available and featured here also give you the option of listening to FM radio as well. All you have to do is tune in the various stations in the same way as the TV channels.

3. Even the most basic of TV cards allow you to record the programmes that you watch onto your PC hard disk.

4. Several of the cards featured here also allow you to connect a VCR, which means that you can copy existing video on to your PC and vice versa.

5. With some TV tuner cards and with the accompanied software, you can use your PC as a hard disk-based video recorder.

6. Many of the cards enable you to view the Teletext pages in much the same way as you would do on a conventional TV.

7. Another feature of almost all the cards is that you can take screen grabs while watching television. You can then save them to your hard disk and use them as you wish.

8. As well as being able to connect devices such as your VCR to a TV card, you can also connect games consoles to them so you can use your monitor to play games instead of commandeering the television on a Sunday afternoon.

ATi's LATEST
ATi has a long tradition of combining TV tuning facilities into its cards and the Radeon All-In-Wonder 9000 is the latest. The benefit of this is that you get all the performance of a leading graphics card and a TV tuner without the need for an additional PCI card. The 9000 should be in the shops soon.