Unboxed: Sony Play TV

After a year long wait since it was first announced, Sony's Play TV finally arrived on the desk of Stuff Magazine UK today. While they were tempted just to sit and watch the Olympics all afternoon, they did have a poke around the PS3's telly recording add-on to give you this first look.

[Jamie Foxx]

are hilarious... 'In order to allow recording while you're doing other things on your PS3 (say, playing Haze) you have to allow 'background recording', and there's a warning that this may cause slow-down and effect gameplay'

haze and effect gameplay lol
classic

[thor]

I see why they mentioned haze though.

Marketing haze the way it was was very bad for the PS3. Whilst halo 3 is THE game for the 360, and is pretty good however you want to spin it, I'm sure many have seen haze for PS3 and compared it. Of course it doesn't hold up at all lol. So many of the only-play-a-few-games-a-year public will view haze as a major title for PS3, and so the PS3 will go down in their estimation.

[FantasyStar]

I think they mentioned Haze because they wanted to point out the irony that Haze is a poorly programmed game that doesn't take advantage of the PS3 that much, yet using PlayTV can slow down gameplay because apparently Haze harnesses the PS3's power.

[THC CELL]

This is still a good addon to ps3 i will be picking it up to replace my free view

[LSDARBY]

I think i will still get this even though you cant transfer recordings. The freeview picture on my TV isnt very good quality. Does anyone know if this upscales the signal to 720p/1080?

[BlackCountryBob]

One would assume that the freeview picture would undergo the same upscale process as DVDs.

I can't figure out why they make a point of stating it cannot record HD at launch when there are no HD Freeview broadcasts as yet; why bother talking about it when it cannot be done anyway so its not really a missing feature we need to discuss for another 3-5 years.

[rickyjb23]

i think it makes a difference because it will be going through your ps3 and the ps3 is conected through hdmi so it should look a bit better , its like having a dvd player on a new hd tv using a scart input it dont look as good as a dvd player using hdmi. look at the pics on that webpage i know my freeview dont look as good as that

[pp]

No thanks i want be spending any money on some cheap made product

[zo6_lover27]

How did I know you would be here?

If you want to talk about cheaply made products, your 360 is probably in the repair shop again.

[QuizPyro]

The bots may come sooner than you think I think pp admires the ps3 he's in all most every ps3 news since I signed up WTF

[foodbox]

PlayTV < Tuner Card + Windows Media Center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[foodbox]

The PlayTV is dead-on-arrival.

1) You cannt transfer files off the PS3, that means no copying them to your phone/psp/PC for storage/viewing.

2) You can buy BETTER and CHEAPER alternatives.

I have a Radio/TV tuner in my PC. I use Windows Media Center to pause Live TV and record (exactly like a PVR).

I watch the files on my Xbox 360 via Windows Media Center Extender.

I copy the files onto DVD volumes for long-term storage.

I copy the files onto my Pantech DUO to view later.

I copy radio programs onto my Zune for later listening.

PlayTV == too many comprimises. I couldnt do *any* of that with the PlayTV.

Further, why the *hell* would I want to load-up my Console's harddrive with recorded video with no where to put it later (like say, in a few years when i get another console, or the Next Big Thing) -- am I going to have to just abandon all my old media? Screw that.

[pp]

And also i could do all that and even more on xbox360 media centre

[QuizPyro]

@pp cheaply made come on stop talking about the failbox360

[4cough]

Seeing you can get a dedicated Freeview recorder with an 160GB HDD for around the same money this thing seems like real bad value for money to me.

http://www.n4g.com/ps3/News...

Never mind the fact that you will have to have the PS3 constantly running, also the ps3's little HDD's are already strained to the max with mandatory installs.

I think this one has to go down in history as a one of the most unnecessary, bad value, poorly thought out products ever.

[disrupt3r]

well you obviously have no idea what your talking about.

[nizza]

"Never mind the fact that you will have to have the PS3 constantly running"

Its got an auto power on feature for recording programs.

"also the ps3's little HDD's are already strained to the max with mandatory installs."

Already upgraded my puny 60gb drive to a 320gb (£70).
Any PS3 owner can do the same

My PS3 is well and truly ready for all the installs, downloaded films and play TV recording I can throw at it

[FantasyStar]

If you think the HDDs in PS3s will strain itself over PlayTV, let alone mandatory installs. The guy above me already said it best.

[LeShin]

Okay guys, something I just recently found out, but unfortunately I can't tell you how I know this and to be honest you don't have to believe it but I'm getting PlayTV regardless unless something changes.

It seems some people at Sony PR made a HUGE mistake with what they said about the moving of files. Everyone heard that the files aren't transferable but that's not entirely true. The files cannot be transfered to the PSP "immediately" not because of a copyright issue but because the PSP simply hasn't the codec required to play the original files back. What this means it is that you can just transfer the files to your PC via USB and then encode them into a format the PSP can recognize then transport it to it.

Now of course, this info could be wrong, but I trust it so I'm still purchasing it, but everybody else can do as they wish.

[BlackCountryBob]

As far as I am aware, copyright restrictions were internet chatter anyway. There are no regulations in the UK at least that would restrict the ability of a product to record programming from the TV; the only restrictions I am aware of are that one cannot use recorded tv to make money and they cannot be distributed outside of the copyright holders control (eg by P2P).

No-one seems to have considered that the ability to copy programming may have been a financial move by Sony due to a fear that the PS3+PlayTV combo could kill their highly profitable and market dominating range of DVD/HDD recorders; he VAIO range of living room windows media centre PCs would also seemingly be in danger of having their market wiped out by the financial loss per unit PS3.

The PSP being unable to play back MPEG2 though is a good point but it could have surely been fixed easily in the past year since the PlayTV was released given the number of highly dubious firmware update additions (Skype, PSP radio).

[pp]

And also another thing its now o.k to have a addon because if i remember not long ago when xbox360 had a HD dvd addon ps3 fony droids were complaining like b*tches that you'll have to make more space.
It seems its o.k for ps3 to have addons .but not o.k for xbox360

[cellfluid]

Play tv what is this madness I don't think I will b purchasein this invention it doesn't have modern abilities... let alone being future proff.. Thanks but no thanks. I wish they would have use the money 2 run test on the ps3 so that they can fully take advantage of its hardware. They 2 make this..black box with a lack of abilities

[Sheddi]

Can someone please explain what Play-TV is?

[BlackCountryBob]

PlayTV is a small USB powered Tv tuner for the PS3. It has 2 European/Oceanic TV broadcast tuners and allows owners to watch, record and timeshift programming from Freeview using the PS3s hard drive.

Think of it like a Sky+ that is on your PS3 but shows Freeview channels only.

[Sheddi]

Thanks, Bubbles +!

[blackblades]

you all always hate on something that you never used, tryed or what ever befor its even out. So shut up and test it out befor you say something.