Verdict: A PVR prince for paupers

Leadtek's TV tuners are always a little more than just reference designs. As we noted when we first reviewed the DTV1000 T, Leadtek has written its own PVR software that's a good stab at the much-vaunted ten-foot interface.

However, although Leadtek has fixed the stability issues with the WinFast DTV software's built-in EPG, which we pinpointed in our original review, the overall feature set hasn't changed. You can browse the EPG using just the remote, but there's no key to call it up in the first place, nor can you use it to schedule a recording without the mouse.

This is a bit of a missed opportunity, as otherwise, the Leadtek's design is sufficiently graphical to be used without a mouse. You can effectively pause live TV, and increase playback speed to fast-forward through ad breaks and catch up with the real-time broadcast. However, you need to turn on Time Shifting first, so unless you leave this permanently enabled, you won't be able to hit pause and catch up after answering the phone.

One of the Leadtek's headline features is its ability to display two channels picture-in-picture. However, without two TV tuners, you can only perform this feat with two channels in the same multiplex, which rather limits its usefulness. More practical is the ability to turn on the PC from standby or hibernation for a recording, and put it back into standby or switch it off completely. Unfortunately, playing back recordings also requires recourse to the mouse to open the file, but after that you can use the remote, and even watch both a recording and live TV simultaneously.

Although a mini-aerial is bundled, we wouldn't recommend using it unless you live in an area with a particularly strong signal. We found it was unable to pick up a single channel, even using the RF signal booster, while our own portable aerial found a range of multiplexes.

Overall, the Leadtek offers a very usable set of features. With MCE-compatible drivers, it's a cheap digital TV partner for a Windows XP MCE system. It doesn't quite have everything you need for entirely couch-bound TV watching, but it's £20 cheaper than other similarly specified tuners.

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