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Sony PS3 PlayTV September 10: Playstation 3 dual digital tuner

Sony PS3 PlayTV September 10: Playstation 3 dual digital tuner

By: Daniel Chubb | July 18, 2008 | 8 Comments

Sony PS3 PlayTV September

The long awaited dual digital tuner for the Sony PS3 is on its way in September to the UK, PS3 Daily are reporting that Sony’s PlayTV will be available to buy for EUR 99 (£79.99) on September 10th.

PlayTV is a digital video recorder add-on for the Playstation 3; you will be able to record TV at the same time as playing games thanks to firmware update 2.41.

The UK will be the first country in Europe to get PlayTV; it will then be rolled out across the rest of Europe from September to December.

While things are never certain, in theory if you did update your PS3 to firmware 2.41, you should have no problems using the PlayTV hardware from September 10th.

If you’re not from Europe and from New Zealand or Australia, you will also be getting PlayTV but will have to wait a little longer. We are hearing the PlayTV gadget is to be sold in those countries from January or February.

Would you like to record live TV on your Sony PS3?

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  • Tony

    I will definitely be getting one of these (and a 500gb USB hard-drive to fill up with it lol)

  • unknown

    how long does the us wait and is play tv wireless or do i have to show wires

  • IHateYouAll

    I highly doubt any of the fanboys that traffic this site can answer my questions, but I’ll give it a go anyways.

    Will PlayTV be able to hook up to an analog cable provider AND a DSL provider that has a CAT-5 set-up?

    Also, I understand that a dual tuner will allow you to record up to 2 channels, however, is there a limitation on the amount of bandwidth that PlayTV will be able to handle such as recording 2 HD programs at the same time?

    Will we be able to configure our PS3′s to record shows to an external hard drive?

    Can recorded shows be streamed to a computer, be it Mac or PC?

    Will PS3 owners be able to distribute recorded shows via file-sharing and thus completely nullify Sony’s attempts at launching a successful online media store (movies & TV episodes)?

    Are fanboys the scum of the earth and should society devise a plan to eradicate them with a ‘Final Solution’? ….Actually, I already believe they should.

    **Stop fanboyism; hang yourself**

  • tim

    Defo gettin 1 of these alongside a sampsung spinpoint m6 500 gb, when i can find them selling it!!

  • Enos88

    For every one this should answer most of the immediate questions… hopefully.

    1. its not coming to North America as there digital terestrel is difrant to the UK and Europe. (the americans use ATSC Standards. Europeans and British people use Digital Video Broadcasting DVB standard)

    2. the Play TV is not wireless and you will have to connect to one of the USB sockets in the playstation. (and as far as PC or Mac support we’ll have to wait and see)

    3. tv shows/ content recorded from the freeview is not protected and you can move it where you want as long as it is in a suitable format. that includes the media server function.

    4. to receive tv threw play tv you will need a good tv areal, the one you normally use for analog tv will do or our existing areal if you’ve already got freeview. just connect the standard TV areal cable into the Play TV areal socket and tune it and it should work.

    5. the price that they put up, don’t take as gospel and i have no idea what the official price is so dont ask.

    that should take cair of most things. if you are all still head scratching then shout and somebody will answer.

  • BlitterBoy

    (A):

    PlayTV is a freeview (SD) tuner. It cannot pick up HD broadcasts, it connects straight to your PS3, there are NO ethernet/cable/satellite ports…just like any other freeview tunner.

    The PS3 currently does NOT stream files from it’s hard drive(s).

  • IHateYouAll

    @ Enos88 & BlitterBoy

    Thanks for the answers an insight. Really do appreciate it. Guess I was way of base; I thought PlayTV would be the required hardware to turn my PS3 into a PVR (personal video recorder) or a DTVR (digital tv recorder).

    I won’t be holding my breath for PlayTV if you guys are right.

    Thanks again,

  • Dweller

    The Playtv will store broadcasted SD in their native MPEG2 format.. I currently watch these on my PS3 via UPNP. They are not copy protected and you will be free to copy them where ever you want.. But be warned they are very large.. (Raw uncompress they are about 2 gigs per hour). UK Freeview HD will be phased in from 2009 (as the analog signals are turned off) however for London (My area) I will need to wait until 2012 )… Check the Freeview website for more up to date information.

    The PlayTV is capable of receiving and playing back DVB-T HD programs but the BBC are currently looking at upgrading to DVB-T2 and I’m not sure if the PlayTV addon is capable of decoding those signals.

    You will be able to watch live TV and recordings remotely via your PSP, this is a pretty cool feature. Which I already use..

    Another handy feature is the ability to playback other HD content (e.g. avi, mpeg’s etc.) I again use the UPNP feature of the PS3 to read them from my Linux server. Pretty sure you can do the same from a stock PC networked.. My advice is to go gigabit networking ASAP as it makes HUGE difference to response times. Foret WiFi its just too damm so..

    Can’t wait to get one.. Am going to pre-order mine as soon as its available on Amazon..