PlayTV is one of the many peripherals Sony says is part of a “future-proofing” program for the PS3 console, but with a £69.99 price tag, what can this thing actually do?

Well to start off with the basics. The PlayTV box contains the main receiver unit which is quite a small black Playstation branded box with a USB cable and the Blu-Ray disc containing the software to get it all going.

You plug the receiver into your PS3 console via USB, and into your roof aerial via the standard RF lead you’d use with your telly. The receiver is USB-powered, so no need for a plug.

Stick the disc in and you’re greeted to a short overview video that you can’t skip, because it actually disguises the PlayTV installation that’s secretly going on in the background.
Buy PlayTV now from Amazon.co.uk

The install takes three and a half minutes, and slaps the full 141MB PlayTV program onto your PS3’s XBM (Cross Media Bar), so you won’t need to insert the disc anymore.

It also puts 308MBs in the Game Data file for “Recordings and Settings”, containing some delete-able default videos about PlayTV.

One thing to note is that the installation of PlayTV places a new TV icon on the main list of icons of your PS3’s XMB which, even if you delete PlayTV altogether, appears to remain permanently on your menu – almost like it’s updated your firmware.

Firing up the program, it automatically detects all the stations – 80-or-so of them – and that’s it; you can jump straight into watching live TV.

Don’t expect miracles from the picture quality – you may have your PS3 hooked up via HDMI, but you’re still essentially watching a standard definition signal so you’ll have the same grainy picture you get with Sky TV or any decent-quality Freeview box.

The controls while watching TV are simple enough, whether you’re using the PS3’s Blu-ray Remote or just a DualShock. You need only hit a button on the controller to bring up menus, program information, channel lists or quit back to the front end.

Of course, the best bit is the ability to pause live TV. Just hit the Start button like you would a game and the screen pauses. Get your tea and scones and when you return you can resume the action by hitting Start again. Simple.

The length of time you can pause for seems limited only by hard drive space – when you pause it starts caching whatever’s being broadcasted to your hard drive. You could leave it paused for the duration of a film and it’d only eat up about 2GBs of storage.

But if you know you’ll be gone for a while you’re better off recording your program to watch later. This is PlayTV’s best feature. Just hit the Select button at any time and it’ll start recording.

There are other ways to get programmes recorded, too. As you browse show listings for the days ahead, you can set the PS3 to record any show with one touch of a button. Or, if you know exactly what you want, you can do a word search for a program and, after a brief search, it’ll list all the examples of that programme airing in the next few days, which you can set to record. Clever, that.

Any recorded footage is slapped in a Library menu, automatically tagged with the programme name and description. Hit X on it and PlayTV runs the recording. Again, nice and simple.

Or, brilliantly, you can export videos to your PS3’s XMB menu as MPEG-2 video (despite rumours suggesting the feature had been removed). From there you can use it like a normal file – watch it on your PS3, put it on PC, transfer it to your PSP… whatever you like.

You can access PlayTV from your PSP via Remote Play, too, allowing you to watch live TV or stored videos through your portable. Handy if you find yourself near a Wifi spot in, say… India, and don’t want to miss out on Corrie.

Update: PlayTV WILL turn on your PS3 to record programmes if your console is left in standby mode. Update Ends.

So, all round, all good. But there are a couple of problems. Advanced recording systems like Sky+ can be set to record every episode of a particular series regardless of what time episodes are aired. Using whatever industry-standard trickery involved, it knows when the programme is on and starts recording. PlayTV can’t do that.

It gets round it by recording on a timer. So, if you know Eastenders is on weekdays from 8pm to 9pm, you can set that up. But if a series has irregular airing times you need to set each episode manually. Not massive problem, but not ideal.

Is PlayTV worth getting, though? If you really like the idea of recording TV, yes. It does it brilliantly, and with intuitive menus and easy features, it all works seamlessly.

But it is £70, and most (if not all) HD TVs come with Freeview boxes built in nowadays, so that’s quite a price to pay just for the privilege of recording. Plus, there’s no scope for it receiving high-definition terrestrial broadcasts, which are planned for the end of 2009.

If Sony then releases a PlayTV HD box, that’ll be well worth a purchase. But this? Its value is questionable.

Via: CVG

Buy now: PlayTV from Amazon.co.uk