PlayTV info

pipo

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· PlayTV’s two TV tuners are High Definition ready and are able to view, record and play back High Definition signals in full HD1080P to fully complement PS3’s already impressive High Definition credentials.

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· Seamless connectivity with PSP allows you to set recordings, watch Live TV and recorded TV programmes remotely on PSP via a Wi-Fi connection (using Remote Play feature).

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· Optional on-screen graphical display provides a wealth of information about the status of PlayTV and provides quick access to programme information, stored TV programmes and the controls to pause or record live TV. PlayTV will also set the correct interface for either Standard Definition or High Definition displays, maximising the viewing experience.

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Expect PlayTV to show up in the UK and Europe around January’08.

http://www.gamecovered.com/2007/10/17/playtv-information/
 
"Expect PlayTV to show up in the UK and Europe around January’08. "
Really, at the same time, how is that possible?

Seriously this is a feature, that will make my PS3 much more useful, if they make it accessable through the PSP for scrolling recorded content etc. while someone else is watching some other stuff, it may trigger me to get a PSP as well.
 
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New PlayTV SKU?

Just wondering if anybody see's the possibility of Sony making the PlayTV hardware a part of the PS3, parhaps as part of a future SKU?

I note that Sony are releasing the PlayTV in Jan/Feb next year and the fact that by then I would imagine the 60GB SKU will no longer be for sale in Europe. Could this leave a gap for a more expensive Playstation3 version complete with 80GB HD and the PlayTV hardware built in?
 
Here's the latest official demo/info vid...

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Shame the box is such a size, and not a diddy-little USB device. And the serious problem with this device is price - £100. You can get cheaper PVR's with 80GBs that don't need a PS3 to run them.

One of my considerations for getting a PS3 was this TV tuner to watch TV on my monitor, as my existing TV's audio is dying (I run it through a guitar amp to be able to hear it!) and the VCR is a bit hokey. A £350 console + PVR + widgety-knick-knack is good value. A £300 console + £100 separate tuner to run on a shared 40GB drive isn't. And that's not really factoring in the price of a monitor adaptor. Sony missed the trick here IMO.

I guess the upside of this is the price of PS3 may well have dropped by the time the must-have LBP comes out, and I'll just ignore TV. Not that I watch much anyway.
 
Pretty gay this isnt in the US. Whats the reason? Something to do with greedy cable co's and drm I suppose.
 
Here's the latest official demo/info vid...
And the serious problem with this device is price - £100. You can get cheaper PVR's with 80GBs that don't need a PS3 to run them.
I'd love to know where you shop. As far as I know the only HD PVR in the UK is the Sky HD box which costs over £200.
 
A £350 console + PVR + widgety-knick-knack is good value. A £300 console + £100 separate tuner to run on a shared 40GB drive isn't. And that's not really factoring in the price of a monitor adaptor. Sony missed the trick here IMO.

Maybe. But it is a two tuner device though, the 40GB disc is very easily and cheaply upgradeable, it supports PSP remote play, and I'm fairly convinced that other cheaper PVR devices don't have the hardware oomph of the PS3, which seems to be very well equipped hardware wise to make this a really smooth experience. EDIT: and yes, HD of course.

I don't think this is coming to the US in this form by the way, simply because this is very specific to the UK market. The US market is more likely to want IP based TV services. I'm sure though that having developed the software interface, they'll offer PlayTV on a various number of platforms, be it IP TV, digital receivers over cable, arials, and what not.
 
I'd love to know where you shop. As far as I know the only HD PVR in the UK is the Sky HD box which costs over £200.
Woohoo. I'll be able to watch the one HD channel on freeview... A USB TV tuner for the PC can be got for £25. According to these people, an HDTV tuner can be got for £30. Dual HDTV tuners for a service that doesn't exist and isn't going to be rolled out for ages and will have lousy compression no doubt to boot doesn't to me sound like £100 worth of value. Plus fo rmost people their TV already has a tuner built in. If you want to video one thing and watch another, switch the TV to a different channel. 'Over spec'd and over priced' is the phrase that comes to mind.

Maybe. But it is a two tuner device though, the 40GB disc is very easily and cheaply upgradeable, it supports PSP remote play, and I'm fairly convinced that other cheaper PVR devices don't have the hardware oomph of the PS3, which seems to be very well equipped hardware wise to make this a really smooth experience. EDIT: and yes, HD of course.
You're talking a very minor niche market though. Yes, PS3's PlayTV device is the best way to get dual-channel HD recording and stream it over the internet to your PSP...but how big a market is that? And the hardware oomph I've already paid for in getting the PS3. I thought the tuner would be a bare-minimum sort of device and let the PS3's innards take care of all the fancy stuff. A cheap tuner and recorder so your PS3 can fill another role in the bedroom/dorm seems far more viable to me.
 
I payed £60 for a wifi addition to my 360 and adding a HD-DVD drive would have been even more. Getting PVR functionality for a mere £100 on top of everything I got out of the box is bountiful in comparison!
 
Play have been saying £100 for quite a while now, it may yet be a placeholder. Though considering it's allegedly going to be DVB-T2 compliant, that may be close to the truth. Not that anyone's going to be able to make use of that feature for another 4 years...
 
A USB TV tuner for the PC can be got for £25. According to these people, an HDTV tuner can be got for £30.
From "those people"

- Record to disk and playback with DVD quality (720x576 MPEG-2 format)

It may support HD, but it certainly doesn't record it by the looks of things.

Anyway, PVR is not something I'm interested in at all, there's never anything that important on TV.

It seems expensive, but then I look at a Sky HD box and it costs £150 more than a normal Sky + box so I think there is more to this "HD" PVR business than you suggest. Also when it was announced they said it would cost between "$135 and $200" so i would wait to see if it's really that expesnive myself.

Everyone will have there own thoughts on it, but to suggest it's over spec'ed and over priced just because there are limited "over the air" HD channels is only really a concern if you believe that's always going to be the case.

I don't know about anyone else, but give me something with more functions than I think I need and I will soon find it hard to live without it.
 
Everyone will have there own thoughts on it, but to suggest it's over spec'ed and over priced just because there are limited "over the air" HD channels is only really a concern if you believe that's always going to be the case.
I believe it's gonna be the case over PS3's lifespan, if not indefinitely due to the limited capacity of the airwaves. The TV bodies have decided more channels is better than fewer, higher-quality channels. Just found an article on this topic. We'll have maybe 3 or 4 HD channels by end of 2009 and no more after that by my guessing.

I don't know about anyone else, but give me something with more functions than I think I need and I will soon find it hard to live without it.
I'm sure that's true. But I'd rather have the thing that does the job wanted for the price wanted, rather than adds on extra features that I could live without and not ask a higher price. If we had a choice of two systems I wouldn't grumble, but if you're in need of a basic car to get from A to B, and the only one being sold you has all the fancy extras at over twice the price you're budgeted for, would you be happy with the entry price?

And the daft part here is the product is just plain uncompetitive. For £100 I can get a TV tuner for PS3 that allows recording and watching of two independent channels, right? For ~£100 I can get a separate PVR with tuners that can do the same and also let me run the PS3 for games or Folding or whatever. You get less use from the PS3 tuner than a standalone box! You don't even get a smaller package with PS3 because the tuner is large enough to mess up shelf space, and won't even sit on top of the PS3 itself! I just don't see the reasoning for this choice of product. If PS3 is to be established the premier media hub, adding TV functions as cheaply as possible has to be the order of the day, making up for the fact that out of the box the PS3 couldn't handle every media service.
 
Some more stuff:

rumors on price and date of release: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=93446
on DRM / recordings: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=93416

Summary:
- price and date not confirmed, Eurogamer says "our (informed) guess is later than March, and lower than 99GB price point" (stress mine)
- you can do whatever you like with the saved recordings:

Mark Bunting, a producer at Sony's Cambridge Studio, which is working on the software for the PlayTV device, showed how the MPEG-2 video files could be moved from the PlayTV interface to the PS3's home menu.

From there, they can be moved to another storage device such as a memory stick, backup hard drive or PC. There is no copy protection in place and no time limit on how long the recording can be kept. Asked what you could do with the file Bunting said: "Anything you like, really, as long as you do it legally. It's in its raw format."

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"If I'm prohibited from getting the recording off and storing it somewhere else because some other dude is making money out of selling it, then I'd rather they brought the law in to catch those people," he added.

That's just what I told my boss 6 years ago when he asked about copy-protection in our software (seriously). Glad this philosophy is making a return, at least for this kind of thing (not to mention mp3 music downloads)
 
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