If you want to record pay TV and have a real electronic program guide, then the Foxtel iQ is the only choice. It's a fantastic product, if you're willing to pay the subscription fee for it.

Topfield has done nearly everything right with the TF5000PVRt. It's beautifully designed, can talk to PCs and is only lacking when it comes to HDTV.

As long as you're not too worried about how it looks, the HDD-J35 is an awesome PVR, with outstanding HDTV support.

Despite the problems using the USB port and the slight inconvenience of the remote control and MP3 and JPEG playback, we found this unit very easy to use for watching and recording TV and very reliable. Its picture quality was excellent and it was also a very quiet operator, with only one small rear fan cooling the unit and only slight hard disk noise evident during boot-up and seek sequences. It's also well priced for a dual-tuner set top box. We highly recommend it.