By Cheryl Currid

If you haven't married your PC to your TV, it's time to plan the ceremony.

PC-to-TV cards take viewing to a new level for entertainment, usability and time shifting. And, some might start digging a digital grave for the traditional set.

TV cards for a PC are inexpensive, usually under $100, and generally easy to install.

Among my favorite cards is PVR, or Personal Video Recorder -- software that allows you to pause, rewind and record.

My latest favorite is the $79.99 AVerTV Studio, from AVerMedia. This low-cost card comes with cable, antenna, and S-Video input, as well as support for 181 channels, a parental channel lockout, an FM tuner and even a remote control.

It runs fine in an older PC, with a minimum of a Pentium III at 450 megahertz, with 128 megabytes RAM and a PCI 2.1-compatible card slot.

It will also run on any version of Windows from 95 through XP. For my testing, however, I used a Gateway Value PC running Windows XP on a 1.7-GHz Pentium 4 processor. The card installed without a hitch, and thanks to Gateway's tool-free snap-in architecture, I also added a secondary hard drive and didn't ruin my manicure in the process.

Once installed, it was incredible to watch TV on a 17-inch flat-panel monitor. Compared to my standard TV sets, this picture had crystal clarity.

And for those who enjoy listening as much as seeing, the AVerTV card comes with plug for premium stereo sound, which is a high-quality FM tuner.

AVerTV's remote control could warm the heart of any couch potato. It not only has functions to change channels and adjust volume but freeze on a frame or instantly start recording. For sports buffs, you can watch instant replays whenever you want. Just hit the rewind button to go back and watch that scene over as many times as you want. It also lets you switch between seeing the TV broadcast in a small window or taking it to full screen. For example, I tried watching CNBC in a small window, while reading stock news and checking my portfolio online using Internet Explorer.

Channel surfers will be delighted to see the multi-channel preview screen. Instead of flipping through each channel, this feature lets you display thumbnails of up to 16 channels simultaneously. That way you can see at once what's on the channels and select the one that looks most interesting.

The PVR software enables you to program recording easily. So, if you seem to fall asleep before Nightline, just set your PC to record it nightly, then watch it on your schedule

You can also connect your camcorder to the AVerTV Studio and transfer your home videos to your PC. Once your videos, or TV shows, are in digital format, it's easy to burn them to a CD. And with the incredible shrinking costs of blank CD-R disks, you may decide that the cost and the quality make VHS tapes obsolete.

One more benefit: Once you marry off the TV and PC, you'll never again have to deal with a clock permanently at 12:00 or mixed-up tapes of a VCR. Stay tuned, I'll be reviewing other TV-to-PC products in the future.