Compro VideoMate DVB-T300

Verdict: Not ideal for couch potatoes

Although the analogue signal is set to be switched off in a few years, not everyone can get a digital service yet, and even if you can, reception can be particularly poor. This is where hybrid TV tuners such as Compro's DVB-T300 come in. With both analogue and digital tuners, it can give you the best of both worlds, or it can tune into the signal from a set-top box with an RF output.

Compro's PVR cards offer a few special features. The hardware-based power control system may not be unique anymore, but Compro was the first company to offer it. This allows you to use the IR remote to power your PC on and off at the touch of a button. It also allows the recording scheduler to power the PC on and off, so you don't have to leave it on all the time. We found this worked flawlessly.

However, one area in which Compro doesn't lead the way is its software interfaces. Like Hauppauge's WinTV2000 application, the DVB-T300's ComproDTV 2.5 PVR software is still very much a Windows affair, rather than being designed to be operated from a distance using a remote. You can access more functions remotely than with the Hauppauge, but you'll need to keep a keyboard and mouse handy to set up recordings.

Although there's a DVB-T broadcast-based EPG built in, you can't operate it effectively with the remote. It also downloads information live, rather than storing a few days at a time in a database for later use. Since the analogue signal doesn't include guide information, you don't get this at all when using the analogue tuner. Instead, pressing the guide button on the remote in analogue mode calls up TitanTV's website, which only lists US channels. It's also worth noting that although you can record from both analogue and digital sources in succession, this isn't a true dual tuner, so you can't record from one source while watching another.

We're always impressed by the engineering of Compro's products, such as the DVB-T200, but the couch-unfriendly software interface makes them more suited to a desktop masquerading as a PVR rather than a true lounge lizard, particularly as the power-cycling abilities aren't available through Windows XP MCE.