MSI Digivox Duo review

MSI's Digivox Duo tuner immediately struck us as a bargain.

For only £30 you get a dual-tuner USB stick. You can record one programme while watching another, or record two at once. Its USB design means you can use it with a laptop or upgrade your PC without having to open the case.

The stick itself isn't particularly good-looking or compact. However, it does have a full-sized RF input, so there are no fiddly adaptors with which to contend. There's no cap for the USB connector, so you'll need to take care if you carry it around in a bag. It comes with the usual, useless mini aerial, which will work only if you happen to live beside a transmitter. More useful is the slender remote control.

We found it easy to get the tuners working with Windows Media Center, which is our favourite tuner software. Picture quality is identical to any other digital tuner in Media Center, as it's using the MPEG2 decoder built into Vista. The tuners were sensitive enough to pick up a consistent signal from our Labs aerial.

If you don't have Media Center, you'll need to use the bundled software for viewing TV and scheduling recordings. Arcsoft's TotalMedia is like a poor-man's Media Center. It has all the key functions, but without the slick-looking transparent menus and transitions. The tuner part of the software is easy to set up, with the option to use Local Channel Numbers (LCN), so you get the expected order of BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4 and so on. Some tuner software doesn't do this, leaving you to painstakingly rearrange the channels or be stuck with an alphabetically ordered list.

The EPG can freely gather information from TV broadcasts, or alternatively you can use the TVTV internet service, although this requires an annual £15 subscription. However, you do get extra features such as the ability to organise your recordings via its excellent website, even when you're not at home.

TotalMedia's EPG doesn't use a timeline like Windows Media Center and most PVRs. On the left of the screen is a list of current programmes and on the right is a list of future programmes on a single selected channel. We found this layout fiddly and more time-consuming than Media Center's timeline.

You can schedule two recordings simultaneously from the EPG. It deals with recording conflicts by offering a set of tickboxes from which to choose, although it doesn't offer alternative screening times, as Media Center does. Strangely, it won't let you access the EPG while you're watching a programme that's recording. Recording two programmes at once locks you out of the EPG completely.

Although it's not perfect, the tuner software is very easy to understand, and is fine for occasional recording and viewing. However, we'd strongly recommend Media Center if you're going to use your PC as your main PVR. Either way, this is a bargain price for a dual Freeview tuner.