Virgin Media's new cable TV box can play all free-to-air HDTV channels in the UK. The trouble is, there is only one - the BBC HD trial channel. To compensate, Virgin Media supplies a huge and ever-changing library of on-demand HD programming that you can dip into at any time.

The success of this model depends entirely on what material is provided and how often it changes, of course. At present there's a smattering of movies and a vast library of documentaries regularly shown on BBC HD, including Planet Earth, Blue Planet and Bleak House. If you're only after HDTV, you've reached a dead end, although Virgin promises to double the HD library to 700 hours by the year end.

But then Virgin Media's brand new V Plus Box HD was never designed to be a HDTV receiver per se. Check out the company's recent advertising and you'll barely see a mention of HDTV. That's because V Plus also happens to be perhaps the best personal video recorder around and that's its key selling point.

Similar to Sky Plus or SkyHD in many ways, the V Plus Box has a 160GB hard disk, HDMI output, component video, two RGB Scarts, stereo audio outputs, RF in and out and an optical audio output for surround sound duties. There's also an Ethernet port for broadband, a service-only USB and a Serial ATA for any future external expansion of the hard-disk capacity.

A great remote control that's almost as good as Sky's helps navigate the potentially confusing platform. Controlling the volume of most TVs, the remote also gives one-button access to your library of recordings on the hard disk. But while scanning through the EPG to find programmes to record works easily enough, some functions can be frustratingly slow.

It's that extra TV tuner and a truly vast library of on-demand material in standard definition that sets it apart from Sky, as well as its ability to record two channels while watching a third.

Archiving recordings is also a cinch. Just set up a playlist and add what you want to export (the box tells you how many minutes each recording will take up), then connect a DVD recorder.