PlayTV Hits Europe In September - Kotaku Comments

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

ara — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:29:13 MDT

@boopadoo: I would like to note, if I may, that US uses different digital terrestrial broadcasting standard (ATSC) than EU (DVB-T) or Japan (ISDB-T). They most likely release first where they see most potential for the product, and if it meets sales targets make the modifications needed and bring it over to other regions.

The high-ish (USB HDTV decoders go for about the same) price most likely comes from the encoder, if it has enough juice to encode 1080p realtime it has to cost something. You couldn't play and record at the same time if PS3 would do the encoding, engineers must have enough troubles keeping low system loads with tons of data streamed through USB to HDD.

ara

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

halfbakednz — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:49:17 MDT

I cant wait til this makes it here(NZ), DVB-t has just started up here and i think all of it is upscaled to 720p with the most popular programs being broadcast in 1080p. The standard STB's cost around $400 here without dvr functionality so this will be a welcome addition to my ps3...

is a shame that u cant game and record at the same time but i did read that it wasnt ruled out for the future...

halfbakednz

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

PSWii60-Fanboy — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:25:10 MDT

British free-to-air HDTV will start early next year: [www.freeview.co.uk]

Dunno about the rest of Europe, this is a must buy for me.

PSWii60-Fanboy

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Cake_Eater — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:55:50 MDT

Most cable (and satellite) providers in the US use a card that is synced with your account so that people can use third-party boxes and still get the cable signal/channels they pay for. Would it be possible for Sony to implement a card-reader with coaxial input in the PS3 for the US in the future?

Cake_Eater

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

boopadoo — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:02:03 MDT

I have to jump of the bandwagon with this one. With all the talk by Sir Stringer about "breaking down silos," how does he expect unity when each territory is coming out with their own specialized gadgets? It's fragmenting the audience, and really getting me pissed off that the US doesn't get the stuff that Japan and Europe are getting.

boopadoo

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Twitch100 — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:48:41 MDT

Dont know about the rest of europe, but germanys "free to air" television isn't great at all. works only in few parts of the country, with around 8 stations. nothing compared to digital cable with more than 100 channels. so its an interesting but useless gadget :S

Twitch100

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

BlackANUS — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:42:10 MDT

I think a good question nobody has asked is how much space is going to be taken up on the hard drive when recording an hours worth of HD content?

BlackANUS

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

jacksons98 — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:26:54 MDT

I hope they bring this to the US when we "finally" go digital next year. Then I could finally ditch my media center PC for good.

jacksons98

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

kspraydad4 — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:35:27 MDT

@f0cus:

[www.scee.presscentre.com]

Operating on the widely available Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial (DVB-T) format, PlayTV uses an incredibly quick and easy to use 7-day Electronic Programme Guide EPG2. that provides the navigation for programming the PVR features of PlayTV.

· 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.

Interpret as you will.

kspraydad4

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Cyclone — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:54:55 MDT

@Accordion:
Its not a long way away, just yesterday BBC released Freesat which includes free to view HD channels.

[news.bbc.co.uk]

even though it says "Satellite" its being done so theres its possible.

Cyclone

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

f0cus — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:45:46 MDT

Can someone point me towards where this was specified as an HD tuner?

Last time I looked it was a dual DVB-T tuner.

f0cus

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

IanC — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:18:30 MDT

£80 for a TV Tuner that just jacks in the PS3 for most stuff is a bit OTT.

Plus in the UK there will never be any free HD channels over the airwaves that use MPEG2. So unless this has MPEG4 support from the get go, or as a free update....

IanC

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Rectangle — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:58:42 MDT

@GOD: Where have you seen that it can record while playing a game or watching a Blu-Ray?

Last report I saw said that it could not.

And wow, 3 whole HD channels. :)

Rectangle

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

GOD — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:55:27 MDT

@Rectangle: But it can...

I'll be getting one. You will start to see more and more HD channels popping up. there are already 3 on there. Don't forget all the regular channels you can pick up also.

It's a win win for me.

GOD

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Bursar — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:37:54 MDT

It's a neat gadget, but I suspect it won't sell in great volumes.

Between Sky+, V+, BTVision, HDD-DVD Recorders and Freeview boxes with HDDs in them, there isn't a lot of room left for this.

Especially as you can get a simple single tuner HDD recorder for about the same price. Pay a little more, and you can get a dual tuner device.

The current lack of free to air HD isn't going to help it sell either.

Bursar

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

zerocool2008 — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:37:19 MDT

I am interested in this, even though i already have a 160 GB Humax Freeview PVR, The interface of Play TV is very cool and the ability to 'dial' into my PS3 via my PSP from anywhere in the world and watch live TV or recorded programs over the net on my PSP or schedule it to record something whilst at work. Very cool especially if you never want to miss Eastenders when on that business trip to the US.
This will only recieve Freeview Digital Terrestrial TV though, FreeSAT HD was launched yestreday in the UK, but i doubt this unit will support that, but if it does or if version 2 of the hardware did then SKY and Virgin would have some serious competition.

zerocool2008

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Rectangle — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:35:55 MDT

@Ungruntled: "Best thing about it though, in my opinion, will be the ability to log into my PS3 while away from home using the PSP (over a wi-fi connection) and tell it what programs to record. That's pretty cool."

Most DVRs already have this feature, but it isn't tied to just one portable device. I can do this with my DirecTV DVR using a web page interface. Hell, I can even set up a recording using my mobile phone, which doesn't even require a wifi connection. Firewalls also won't get in the way with a web interface.

If you forget to bring your PSP with you (who totes their honkin' PSP everywhere, anyway?), or can't find a wifi access point, you're sunk.

Rectangle

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

cdammers — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:23:10 MDT

PVRs are a doddle to set up. Most of them will autotune the channels with the press of a button.

cdammers

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Fallible — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:20:53 MDT

@cdammers: To be fair, it was me that said that.

And I'm not really in the know with all things tech,, but I'd assume that set up and installation will be easier with a Sony branded device and I can see the remote play feature being worth the price alone.

Fallible

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

dirtypanda — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:17:59 MDT

I really don't see any use this would have in the US.

If you have WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER.....whats the point?

dirtypanda

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

cdammers — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:15:16 MDT

"excel_excel: It can pick up non-HD television channels too."

Yeah, but so can any PVR. Unless you have a large spare hard drive lying around, why pay £80 to share storage with your installed games and other media for this when you can get an 80GB PVR for less money? Remote Play is the only thing it has going for it, and you can achieve similar results using Orb or SlingPlayer. I can't see this being more than a niche product until HD broadcasts take off.

cdammers

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Ungruntled — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:12:29 MDT

Agreed that whoever is calling this an "HDTV" should shush immediately. It's a Freeview TV tuner that allows PS3 to record to the internal HDD. Only a few channels will be available on Freeview in HD.

Best thing about it though, in my opinion, will be the ability to log into my PS3 while away from home using the PSP (over a wi-fi connection) and tell it what programs to record. That's pretty cool.

However, £80 for a box that is powered from the PS3's USB slot and uses the PS3's HDD... hmmm, that's a bit of a rip-off. What exactly are we paying for? Considering a stand-alone HD tuner can be picked up for £20, and this does not contain much more. Methinks someone is pulling a fast one...

Ungruntled

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Rectangle — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:06:28 MDT

I don't get why you would want a DVR that can't record your favorite TV show while you are playing a game or watching a Blu-Ray. Seems pointless to me.

Rectangle

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Fallible — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:04:23 MDT

@excel_excel: It can pick up non-HD television channels too. I watched the video posted a while back to refresh myself and answer my own question and from what I can tell the HD part is somewhat of a 'future-proof' feature.

Fallible

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

dionion — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:56:01 MDT

@GingerMohawk: The PS3 supports DivX/xvid since December. Also WMA, H.264 (but not in .mkv or .mov containers) and MPEG-2.

dionion

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Accordion — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:54:44 MDT

I dont know if Europe has any HD broadcasts, but in the UK free to air HD is a very long way away.

This may be capable of HD support, but for now it is merely another bullet point on a seemingly misguided product.

There will be no free to air HD broadcast until after the digital switch on 09, and currently the only way to recieve HD broadcast is through buying into SKY or Virgin Media, both of which include PVR functionality which much better intergration.

Accordion

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Llost — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:52:24 MDT

I could have sworn the TV recording feature used to be marketed as an already built in feature, what changed to make us need to pay £80 for it?

Llost

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

X201 — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:49:17 MDT

There are no Freeview HD channels at the moment. They haven't even committed to there being any at all. How PlayTV can be touted as a HD tuner when they haven't even decided upon a standard for the signal to be broadcast in seems a bit odd. Kotaku transciption SNAFU?

X201

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

excel_excel — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:48:07 MDT

@Llost: ah yeah me too, heres hoping

excel_excel

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

string_theory — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:47:20 MDT

If this is just for OTA it's kind of pricey.

Does it take cablecard 2.0?

string_theory

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Llost — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:45:46 MDT

@excel_excel: I know it's been removed, I just hope that they reintroduce it once they've managed to drive costs down. Otherwise I'm not too interested.

Llost

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

GingerMohawk — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:45:15 MDT

The PS3 is becoming a more tempting bit of kit. Though until PS3 gets Divx support or support a codec that the 360 can't/won't then ill sit tight.

GingerMohawk

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Toasticus — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:43:23 MDT

Geez. For that price I'd rather pick up a TiVo, the software component of which I can rely on to be fantastic. I like the idea of making the PS3 into a DVR but that's just too expensive to be worthwhile.

Toasticus

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

cdammers — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:41:47 MDT

It might just be worth it for the HD part, if you've got Sky but no PVR. Otherwise it seems a bit pointless. You can pick up dedicated PVRs with much more storage for less money.

cdammers

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

excel_excel — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:39:53 MDT

@Llost: the BC compatibilty is completely gone on PS3 european models now its sucks....

Also what channels can we tune into that are HD??

excel_excel

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Llost — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:38:22 MDT

@Ichidou: Screw them, this is for the europeans. Good job Sony, doing something for Europe for once. This is one thing that makes me want a PS3 quite badly but I am still going to hold out till they announce backwards compatibility or a few more games I really want come out.

Llost

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Derigor — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:37:33 MDT

@LosDaddie: I remember someone else stating how this wouldnt work in the US due to how we recieve our HD signals... Course I dont remember specifics but looks like we wont see anything this cool.

Derigor

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

j.howlett — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:37:14 MDT

for those in the US try dtv2009.gov

j.howlett

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

scuba2steve — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:31:27 MDT

I dunno £80 is not bad..... only other options for HDTV are skyHD and virgin - both subscription services...... now i just would need a bigger hardrive

scuba2steve

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Ichidou — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:30:07 MDT

@LosDaddie: Wondering the same thing. I could really use an HD tuner in my house

Ichidou

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

Fallible — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:28:25 MDT

So how does it work?

Fallible

PlayTV Hits Europe In September

LosDaddie — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:27:17 MDT

And what about the largest game market, the USA?

LosDaddie