Although the slow take-up of digital TV in the UK has taken many by surprise, not least of which the current government, things are slowly improving, aided by free-to-air digital services from the likes of Freeview. There may be many more set-top boxes around now than there were six months ago, but the fastest growth is in the amount of receivers, internal and external, available for the PC market. One of the latest is the DTV MagicBox from Twinhan.

A USB 2.0-based external receiver, the MagicBox weighs a mere 20g, making it an ideal companion for your laptop, with the added advantage of being powered via USB so you don't have to cart yet another power supply around with you.

The MagicBox is a compact unit with just single USB and RF aerial connectors on the rear of the box, so physically setting it up offers no problems and the ease of use continues with the remote control, which is well laid out with all the buttons offering single functions.

Once installed the software interface will be familiar to anyone who is used to any of the media players out there, so navigating around the various functions is effortless. The main software console has the usual playing, recording and pausing controls, in addition to the channel up and down buttons.

The bottom of the console has seven icons which represent preview mode, which shows stills of a number of different channels at one time, plus the Electronic Programme Guide available with terrestrial digital TV and the list of available files recorded by the MagicBox. There's also access to the MagicBox setup panel, screenshot capture, and access to lists of favourite TV and radio channels (although DAB radio is not supported). There's also an icon for access to teletext which unfortunately isn't available to UK users presently.

One annoying aspect of the MagicBox is that the software doesn't prompt you to scan for channels automatically; instead you have access the setup manually, but once in it's an easy matter of just selecting which country you live in and pressing the scan button. The software then scans all the available frequencies and adds them to the selection page. Alternatively you can choose to scan for all the available channels.

The MagicBox offers straightforward recording of video and, more usefully, you can timeshift live TV. The recording feature lets you schedule programs to be recorded, just like a standard VCR, and with the MagicBox using MPEG-2, any recording is saved to the hard disk in its original form, therefore retaining its original quality. Twinham quotes 1.6 -1.8GB of hard disk space per hour of recording.

As well as a USB cable, remote control (with batteries) and quick installation guide, there is also a software CD which, along with utilities and drivers, also includes a copy of Cyberlink PowerDVD 5.0. One slightly irritating thing is that the manual is only available as a PDF file. It would more helpful if a hard copy was included as well.

Twinhan's DTV MagicBox is simple to install and equally easy to use with the added bonus of being a compact lightweight unit offering digital TV capture for people on the move.