19in widescreen LCD TV which shows much promise and is Dell’s first consumer offering in Australia. Spec-wise it looks quite good on paper, with 450cd/m2 brightness, 600:1 contrast ratio and 1280 x 768 widescreen resolution, and it doesn’t disappoint when fired up.

Compro's VideoMate Gold TV may be an analog TV tuner card, but it's got one feature that alone makes it better then the DTV cards reviewed - it has a power pass-through for your PC's power switch.

Although similar products have been available (with much controversy) in the US for a few years, the Samsung DVD-H40A is the first Personal Video Recorder (PVR) to reach our sunny shores.

Similar in nature to the Zinwell ProV (June 2002, page 46) but with better execution, the X-Media DreamBox is a small set-top box for your desktop that lets you watch TV, video, console games and DVDs on your monitor without the need to power on your PC.

As well as TV viewing (an analog tuner is built in) this screen's strength comes from its LCD-ness which makes it awesome for plugging into a PC (Media Center, anyone?) or for components like digital set-top boxes or DVD players.

While the epithet 'multimedia PC' used to be bandied about to over-hype any PC in the mid-'90's that was capable of playing music, rudimentary video, and games, the descriptive was overused so much on sub-par PCs that the impact of any real multimedia capabilities was diminished in the wash of pretenders.

For those with deep pockets and big hearts, this DVD recorder comes with full PVR functionality and an 80GB hard drive.

The problem with having a DVD player, cable TV or a VCR is that when you want to use them you’re usually relegated to the lounge room where they’re set up, and not the secondary comfort of a spare room, the kitchen or your bedroom.

There’s only so many times I can herald the coming switch from analog TV broadcasts to digital, so I’ll just dig straight into this impressive digital television card.

Bursting at the seams with inputs, this model has it all. Integration of a TV-tuner makes this more than just a PC display - rather, it's a multimedia powerhouse, perfect for game consoles, DVD viewing and TV watching.

The Qosmio is the absolute pinnacle in multimedia notebooks. It brings everything you need for a good Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) system and squeezes it into a notebook form-factor. Albeit a large notebook form-factor. Yes the Qosmio is a huge and heavy notebook, but it's not nearly as heavy as it would have been if it was packed with desktop internals as many desknotes of this size usually are.

There is something totally decadent about playing your favourite PC game on a 30-inch LCD monitor with stereo sound from two banks of speakers - one on each side.

The ProV is a product similar in nature to the Canopus ADVC-100 (page 44), but where the ADVC-100 is used for transcoding video streams with an eye on digital video work, the ProV is used to bring versatility to your computer monitor, or breathe life into any spare monitors youve got laying around.

The HomePlug networking standard has been around in the States and other countries for a few years, and has proven a popular alternative to running CAT 5 cabling in your walls or for the (then) expensive cost of setting up a wireless network. HomePlug is wired networking for sure, but it uses an existing infrastructure in your office or domicile: your copper electricity power 'network' that feeds your TV, hair-dryer, fridge and any other electrical appliance the juice it needs to run. In short, HomePlug uses your house's electrical wiring.

It turns out that Microsoft [I]is[/I] bringing out Windows XP Media Center Edition in Australia, but until such time as it materialises -- and Microsoft Australia is being very sketchy on the dates -- those of us looking to integrate our PC media files with our televisions and hi-fi systems have to turn to bridging solutions.

One of the few proper HDTV capable digital TV tuner cards reviewed, the Dvico FusionHDTV DVB-T was really capable in our tests.

Leadtek's WinFast PVR 2000 is one of the two analog TV tuners we've looked at, but while it lacks Compro's power-on functionality it makes up for it with DirectBurn (the ability to burn recorded programs direct to CD or DVD) and an FM tuner.

The small USB S-Media MediaMate 210D is a fairly hardy TV tuner, with some basic software but enough to get the job done.

Digital radio in Australia is a slow burner. While many people are investing in digital set-top boxes and digital displays for the purpose of watching digital TV, not too many people are jumping on the digital radio bandwagon.

The Olympus Camedia C-740 is a 3.2-megapixel camera offering images at 2,048 x 1,536, with a maximum 10x optical zoom. Offering USB connectivity, miniature xD-Picture card support and video output that allows pictures to be viewed on TV as well