Want to watch the latest season of Desperate Housewives but keep missing the episodes because you are not home early enough?
Buy a video recorder, friends will say.

Sure, but now, there is a cheaper option - sign up for a free 'online recorder' service that lets you watch the programmes later on a PC.

Called RecordTV, the service lets users choose their favourite TV programmes and record them on an Internet server for viewing later.

All that the user does is surf to www.recordtv.com, pick from a list of the day's programmes and click to record.

After the programme has aired, he can use his PC to play back the programme - like a video recorder.

RecordTV chief executive officer Carlos Fernandes is confident the service will take off with Net-savvy users who are used to watching YouTube videos.

'Instead of missing your favourite TV shows because you want to go out, you record what you would otherwise miss and see it when it is convenient to you,' he said.

Earlier this month, he showed Digital Life a demo of the service, recording Channel 5 and Channel 8 programmes with a Net-connected laptop.

Mr Fernandes set up his Singapore company after he and partner Varsha Jagdale bought over the assets of the similarly-named company in the United States for an undisclosed sum in February.

The American RecordTV firm, founded in 1999, was embroiled in a damaging lawsuit with the content industry over copyright infringement in 2001, forcing it to stop the online VCR service.

Mr Fernandes said his Singapore firm is free of the legal tangles of the past: 'We did not buy the US-based RecordTV outright. We only bought its assets - including its trademarks and software.'

He is, nonetheless, careful to avoid a hefty lawsuit with the content industry.

Only people accessing the Net from Singapore are allowed to watch channels broadcasted here, since TV programmes are usually restricted geographically.

At the same time, the RecordTV service records only free-to-air TV, so it does not let users pirate pay-TV programmes. It also does not stream any live content.

The company tunes in to several channels in the air, but only records a programme when a user clicks on it.

This is the way the VCR works, said Mr Fernandes, except his service is over the Internet.

Users will be able to sign up and store videos up to 30 days for free, for a start.

The company also wants to license its technology to broadcasters as a value-added service, though this may take some convincing.

Many broadcasters already have on-demand and recording features. SingTel, for example, will let users pause and record live TV with its new Internet TV service.

StarHub has a free personal video recorder service (though users have to buy a $300 recorder), while MediaCorp lets viewers watch drama serials on its mobTV website.

Audiences also have more choices now. Said undergraduate Cai Hui Jie, 20: 'There are a lot of websites like PeekVid.com which let you watch dramas and comedies from around the world.'

She added: 'Why would you want to record programmes from Singapore only?'