Gadget: Q-Waves Wireless USB AV Kit

The BBC iPlayer is great but it has one flaw; there's no easy way to watch it on your TV. Even if you have Virgin TV or a PS3, the iPlayer is restricted to the TV connected to your set-top box. I wanted to catch up with the latest episode of Spooks while on my running machine and Q-waves had the technology to make that happen.

(99 from www.amp3.co.uk or www.hmv.co.uk; see www.q-waves.com for more information)

The Wireless USB AV Kit sounds complicated, but really, it's not. It comes in two parts - a wireless USB adapter that plugs into your PC or laptop's USB port and another wireless adapter that plugs into your TV or projector via either HDMI or VGA connections.

In a nutshell, this means that anything you can see or hear on your PC or laptop magically appears on your TV. You can either display a cloned picture of your PC's screen or use the 'Extend' mode so that your TV acts as an extension of your desktop. The best bit is that there's no fiddling. CD inserted, drivers installed, plug the adapters in and everything just works.

The wireless USB connection is rock steady, delivering a bandwidth of 480Mb/s at 3 metres and 110Mb/s at 10 metres. In real terms, this means that you can stream high resolution video as long as your computer and TV are no more than a couple of rooms apart. The signal gets a bit shaky if it needs to pass through walls, so bear that in mind.

There's something rather futuristic about answering e-mails on your laptop and watching a movie streamed from your hard drive simultaneously on your TV. As for my running machine, it's getting a lot more use now I've got iPlayer, ITV Player and 4OD streamed wirelessly to a TV perched next to it.

Anything you can see or hear on PC or laptop magically appears on TV

• This article was first published in The Scotsman on November 6, 2010