Ever since the mid-1990s, a variety of manufacturers have been attempting to find a reliable way to turn your PC into a television – without a huge amount of success.

TV is particularly resource hungry, which means that even with the most up-to-date video card you're not going to get a great full screen image. And besides that, most people actually find it a little distracting watching television while they are working.

However, the new PC/TV devices now have more useful functions such as video capture from digital cameras, DVD burning capabilities and even video recording and realtime recording in MPEG1 and MPEG2 formats.

Because it's an external device, it is easy to connect and simple to set up, however, it's essential to make sure you don't have any software already loaded that may conflict, including other DVD burners or applications associated with your graphics card.

As long as your PC is within reach of a TV antenna or cable television connection you can be watching TV while you work in a matter of minutes.

PCTV will do an automatic channel search and comes with a remote control unit that allows you to channel surf as if you were in front of your lounge room TV. However, in most cases your picture will start to get fuzzy if the resolution is set any higher than 320 x 240.

Connecting a digital video camera or even a console is just as easy thanks to the audio/video and S-Video connections in the unit, and this is where the real value of the PCTV lies.

You can burn information direct to CD, VCD or DVD and because of the video recorder capabilities there is the ability to add clips of anything from old movies to the latest news into your own home movie productions.

However, a word of warning. If you intend to remove the program be cautious about what it takes with it. It mutes some sound cards by default so you may find you have no sound and if you do a clean uninstall you might find a few other problems around the place, as it appears to remove some vital files needed by Windows and some Norton software. However, overall it has plenty to offer for the amateur movie maker.