Sony PlayTV which is the add-on for your much loved PS3 will allow you to watch and of course record SD and HD freeview channels, you can record and watch separate channels at the same time and even play games if you like whilst PlayTV is recording. All this sounds fantastic, but there is a flaw in the system.
Where there is good news, you know for a fact the bad news follows, Sony were contacted by Eurogamer and was told that PlayTV’s saved video files that you recorded will NOT be transferable to other devices, and we mean devices like the PC or indeed the PSP and even memory cards. Once you have recorded something you have to watch it via PlayTV. You will still be able to stream live or recorded content to your PSP via Remote Play
The Good News: At first many believed that PlayTV would cost a lot of money which was going to be around £100, but the real price is only £69.99, yes you will have to wait to September 19th to get your hands on this clever little device for your PS3.
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Tags: playtv, sony
18 responses so far ↓
1 Jake // Aug 14, 2008 at 12:17 pm
i was up for it until i heard that…
2 joe king // Aug 14, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Bummer…
3 yeargh! // Aug 14, 2008 at 12:52 pm
..as were many people i think.
it’s probably something they announced before actually consulting their lawyers.
4 karl // Aug 14, 2008 at 1:55 pm
What HD channels are there on freeview?
5 Scoops // Aug 14, 2008 at 6:00 pm
There aren’t any HD channels on freeview which is why it doesn’t support HD yet.
BTW I want to know if you can record from this onto an external hard drive or not because I only have a 40gb ps3 and was going to get a 500gb drive for this.
If you can record onto an external drive I cant see how they can stop you transferring files from that onto a PC.
6 Tim // Aug 14, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I’ve been waiting patiently for what seems forever for the playTv and now feel really let down….not being able to transfer recordings to the the psp (remote play is not much use on the train, is it?) negates the advantage over the pvr I had decided not to get. C’mon Sony….I was gagging to buy this, now Humax will get my business (can’t tell you how annoying this change of drm heart is).
7 Omar // Aug 15, 2008 at 3:51 pm
i think that you can watch things youve recorded via remote play, but you cannot copy it onto your psp or pc system.
the only good thing is that you dont have to susbscribe monthly for playtv, unlike GOVIEW on psp. right??
8 Eddie // Aug 22, 2008 at 5:13 am
Very reliable sources from the Leipzig game conference have been telling selected press that recorded content IS transferable outside of PlayTV in it’s full original quality without any DRM but they want this feature to stay low-key so shhh
9 Tim // Aug 28, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Hi Eddie, I’m keeping my disappointment in check in the hope that your comment re. sources at Leipzig is accurate….do you have any more details you can share?
How would the transfer from PlayTV/PS3 to PSP work? Humax my miss out after all!
Cheers mate….
10 gav // Sep 8, 2008 at 11:32 am
So does anyone know when we will get the the free HD channels on PlayTV. I like the whole package but with Freesat you can get the free HD channels. When will this happen.?
11 boss33 // Sep 15, 2008 at 1:20 am
I`m hoping so, if that`s the case, sometime ago i put a bigger size HDD 320Gb, not just for playtv, but i don`t won`t my, Harddrive to fullup with tv progammes.so the thought of putting them on SD Cards,USB FlashDrives,and USBExternal Harddrives, is what i`m hoping for,
12 Andy Singleton // Oct 1, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Hey! I got a massive problem with PlayTV. As soon as I plug the aerial lead into the PlayTV box I get massive modulation / interference problems on screen. This happens when PlayTV is not being used, even when playing a game.
As soon as I unplug the aerial everything is back to normal.
Mighty strange as there is no problem when I use a Nokia external freeview receiver on the same TV.
Any suggestions please?
13 ProfessorHat // Oct 1, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Well, I have one and can confirm you are able to transfer shows from the PS3 hard drive to a USB stick / SD card / USB hard drive. You can’t record directly to them though.
The files are in m2ts format which is a format used by the Blu-Ray association and I’m guessing has been used to conform to Freeview HD channels when they arrive (NB - PlayTV cannot pick up Freesat as this is not broadcast over the air via the DVB-T standard). Freeview HD is due to come after analogue TV has been switched off in your area so will not go round the country all at once - check the Freeview website to see when this is in your area.
I can confirm, with a program called MPEG Streamclip (which is free), it’s perfectly possible to convert these m2ts files to Mpeg2 format and from this, they can easily be burnt to DVD if you so desire.
So the article above is incorrect in many ways.
14 john // Oct 21, 2008 at 10:58 pm
will playtv work in non freeview area
15 ProfessorHat // Oct 21, 2008 at 11:44 pm
No, PlayTV is basically contains a Freeview digital tuner so if you can’t get Freeview, it won’t work I’m afraid.
16 jay campbell // Oct 24, 2008 at 11:25 pm
wot channels are available then?
17 ProfessorHat // Oct 25, 2008 at 10:53 am
Same ones you get on Freeview - http://www.freeview.co.uk/freeview/Channels.
18 Andy Singleton // Oct 25, 2008 at 10:27 pm
The whole PlayTV situation is ridiculous.
I sold mine.
If you buy it, then you are wasting your money on condemmed technology.
At the grossly inflated price of 70 squids, this cheap Chinese plastic box should have included support for Freesat and therefore HDTV reception. Sony are even so tight as to include a USB connection cable, so short, it’s useless in lots of situations.
I must admit that the software and user interface is very nice, yet, please take into consideration that Freeview boxes are at bargain basement prices now, so why bother with this?
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