Review Digital terrestrial TV is slowly but surely winning viewers over from analogue transmissions in Europe, and with all analogue signals scheduled to be switched off in the UK by 2010 and replaced by DVB-T, it's time to start thinking about how you might want to make the switch...

If you've got a Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) PC or something similar containing one or more analogue tuners, TerraTec's Cinergy 2400i DT might be just what you need to facilitate the digital upgrade.

The 2400i DT comes in two different versions: one for MCE PCs and another for those that need a remote control and some software to make it work. The TV tuner card is identical in both packages. It's is a fairly tall, white PCI Express x1 card. This would be a problem with older computers that don't have PCI Express on board. However, this is one of the first PCI Express x1 cards to go beyond SCSI and network controllers, so a big thumbs up to TerraTec for moving TV tuners into the PCI Express era.

What makes the TerraTec Cinergy 2400i DT even more special is that it features two DVB-T tuners, which allows you to use it as a true PVR, to record one show while watching another. This could be an affordable alternative to buying a dedicated dual-tuner PVR as they tend to be heavily over-priced if you're looking at anything above 80GB. Sure, for the card solution you need a PC and it might not be as user friendly as a consumer device, but it's a step in the right direction. Having a second tuner also allows for picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture (although the second picture is smaller than the main one), which you only get with fairly advanced TVs and very rarely with digital TV set-top boxes.

The remote control uses infra red and comes with a USB receiver, although I'd rather have seen a radio-frequency remote bundled, like the ones ATI supply with its All-in-Wonder cards. The colour scheme is rather strange as well, with a grey casing and orange buttons. Some of the buttons aren't self explanatory and some have dual functionality. Hmmm, confusing. The rather small buttons can also be awkward to press and I would've particularly liked larger buttons for the channel and volume controls. The playback controls could also be improved, as the play button has, for some reason, been separated from the fast-forward, rewind and pause controls.

The software package is Cyberlink PowerCinema 4.5, which closely resembles Windows MCE. You can use it for watching TV, DVDs, video clips and photo slideshows, and for making and playing time-shift recordings. It handles music playback too. You can also use it for listening to the radio - though not with the Cinergy 2400i DT card, as it doesn't have a built-in radio tuner. However, you can listen to the 24 radio channels that are inlcuded in the Freeview package just as you can on any DVB-T set-top box.

PowerCinema 4.5's user interface is easy to navigate with the remote, or using a mouse, but it's not entirely logical. Tuning to the TV channels is straightforward enough (and takes just 10-15 minutes during set-up), but once you start using the remote control in conjunction with PowerCinema 4.5, you realise that emulating Windows MCE might not have been such a great idea. The reason behind this is the remote control, which seems to make simple tasks complicated.

Here's an example. To get into the main TV viewing part of PowerCinema 4.5 you select the 'TV' option and up pops the TV window. This has a menu to the left and a menu bar at the bottom of the screen with various playback volume and general settings to choose from. There's a button on the remote that brings PowerCinema 4.5 from window mode to full screen, but this doesn't make the TV picture full screen. To do this you have to move to the TV window with the arrow keys on the remote control and then press the 'ok' button. Not exactly straightforward.

To enable picture-in-picture or picture-by-picture when the main TV window isn't full screen, you have to select the Twin TV option in the menu and then select the second tuner of the card. Once again, this seems like a rather convoluted way of doing things. Recorded video quality was excellent and you can also take screen grabs from whatever is showing in the main TV window. You can even convert teletext screen grabs into text.

Using the time-shift functionality is straightforward, but you have to set this up in a menu before you can use it. You can record at the same time as you're watching two programs, but you can only record the program in the main window. You can also do a preview of 12 channels at a time, but this gives you about a second of motion picture for each channel until you move on to the next.

The electronic programme guide (EPG) is the same as the one you get on a normal DVB-T set -top box, but you can also set up PowerCinema 4.5 to use an online EPG. You can use the EPG to schedule recordings of TV programsme, much as you would with a Sky+ box.

PowerCinema 4.5 crashed a fair few times during the time I tested the card, at random points of usage. It isn't uncommon for applications to crash, but Windows MCE is a far more stable platform if you're serious about your media centre PC.

The Cinergy 2400i DT is an excellent TV tuner card, as long as your PC meets the criteria you need to install it. However, the bundled software isn't quite up to scratch and the remote control is a bit iffy. However, if you're running Windows MCE, this is an excellent product that will allow you to use your MCE PC as a full DVB-T PVR.

Verdict

At £90 the TerraTec Cinergy 2400i DT isn't cheap - the MCE version is £15 cheaper - but it is currently the only product of its kind. The picture quality is first rate and TerraTec has beaten its competitors to the PCI Express market, but sadly the remote control and software let the overall package down. However, if you're using Windows MCE, these issues are of no concern. ®