PS3 to receive tuner, DVR capabilities before March 2008

It's been rumored before, now Sony's marketing manager for Computer Entertainment in New Zealand has apparently, and likely pre-emptively, unveiled Sony's intentions to turn the PS3 into a digital video recorder. Sony's Warwick Light is quoted in an interview with New Zealand's The Press as saying, "We're also hoping next year – about the same time that Freeview launches its terrestrial broadcasting service (expected to be in March) – to release a digital tuner for the PS3, turning it into a programmable TV recorder." Sure, why not, but we're going to need a hell of a lot more than 80GB or 120GB of storage to make that thing useful for HD recordings.

[Via gi]

[ATT @ Aug 1st 2007 5:58AM]

will this mean upgrade the file system for external storage from FAT32 to something else by next year cause of the 4GB limit

[pigfister @ Aug 1st 2007 12:07PM]

its pointless but sony pr have to do somthing as its failing as a game machine because their are no games worth the high price of the ps3 atm and with exclusives drying up or just being timed exclusives what exactly is the point of a ps3?

i know.

blu-ray = drm lock down from the media mafia which is why most of the members back blu-ray and why rupert murdoch's fox and co wouldn't release any movies in hi-def until BD+ was finalised.

now that bd+ is their & sending your details back to the mafia via the "none intrusive" usage and, "security" updates giving movie and whoever else your film usage, ip address and unique serial number of your machine just waiting for you to get hold of a multi region hack so they can remote disable you player permanently.

yes i think i'll rush out now and purchase a blu-ray drive (sarcasm for the neocons)

[James @ Aug 1st 2007 1:01PM]

For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

FAT32 can do up to 2TB, not 4GB.

[Jagster @ Aug 1st 2007 1:07PM]

They don't use ext3 for the filesystem?

And Sony keeps making this less and less a game console... maybe that's their goal.. make a media player that plays a couple games to pull their fan base into buying one just to get some traction on their real goal. I feel sorry for those who dumped $600 to play 2 or 3 games.

[James @ Aug 1st 2007 1:14PM]

Oops! I thought you meant partition-size limit, which is 2GB for FAT16, but I now presume you meant file-size limit, which is of course 4GB for FAT32. Which, as you say, sucks. Workarounds would be possible, but ugly.


Of course, if they "upgrade" from FAT32, where would they go? If they choose NTFS, it's a bit of a hassle to get Linux working with it, plus it's a dreaded Microsoft taint. If they choose ext2 or ext3, it's a hassle to use the drive with a Windows box. I don't think there's One True Filesystem that they can fall back on other than FAT32...

[Anthony @ Aug 1st 2007 1:31PM]

@James

Yeah, pretty sure he meant file allocation space. And ZFS would be nice, but I know I'm dreaming. Keep in mind that FAT has far more "limitations" (see: faults) than just a small file size cap.

[shaun @ Aug 1st 2007 1:51PM]

@pigfister (wtf!?): learn to spell

[Larz @ Aug 3rd 2007 1:21PM]

Hey pigfister, are you wearing a tin foil hat?

Well, this is exciting news for me. The PS3 is a nice little multimedia unit and can be used as a PC, all for for less than the price of a Blu-Ray drive. Seems like I'm the only one who thinks this is a nifty little unit though.

I know everyone keeps bashing the PS3 and saying it has "no" games. Well, you can say the same about all new Consoles right now. I made the mistake of buying a Wii--it's a nice paperweight. The only advantage I got from that was a smaller GC which I can use to play the only 2 good games ever realeased for GC.

How about XBox you say? OK, it's got a new Halo for a bit until it gets released for PC. But am I the only one that sees Halo as just another shooter except you have to use a limiting console controller instead of keyboard/mouse? FPS's will always be a PC thing for me.

[Ross @ Aug 1st 2007 5:58AM]

Who cares?

[Nfinity @ Aug 1st 2007 6:10AM]

Exactly. I don't think they'll last that long (j/k) with Best Buy offering HD DVD add-on for $149.99 + 5 HD DVD movies + 1 HD DVD with the drive itself (so 6 if you're lucky).

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8132095&st=360+hd-dvd&type=product&id=1158321865239


How much will this one cost, $800? HA ha ha..I had to troll just a bit. :) Sorry.

Btw, the HD DVD X360 is real, just bought one.

[shaun @ Aug 1st 2007 9:00AM]

why don't you ask engadget to make you a special RSS feed for a special person like yourself so that you don't feel the need to post useless comments when you don't like a post?


tosser

[shaun @ Aug 1st 2007 9:01AM]

btw that was a reply to ross not the one about hd dvd

[PS3guy @ Aug 1st 2007 9:58AM]

I care, xbox fanboy.

[John @ Aug 1st 2007 6:09AM]

I could've sworn this thing was supposed to be a gaming console...

[Andir3.0 @ Aug 1st 2007 9:17AM]

It's a "Play" station. It plays games, movies, music, etc. It's controlled by Sony Computer Entertainment. Entertainment can be in the form of games, movies, music, etc.

[pkilla @ Aug 1st 2007 12:38PM]

Stop complaining about posts that endgadget makes. If you don't what to read it then continue scrolling down the page and read another topic.

Damn u guys piss me off. You give no useful information at all with your posts.

[John @ Aug 1st 2007 9:21PM]

@pkilla: I'm not complaining at all about Engadget. I love reading these types of posts as they are always informative

I guess you could say I'm complaining more towards Sony. :)

Oh, and useful information? This isn't Slashdot you know...

[mills.edward @ Aug 3rd 2007 2:57PM]

What's wrong with it doing more than purely gaming? You can use the 360 as media streamer, so what's the difference? This is a new generation of consoles, of course they're going to go above and beyond purely gaming. For me, it made the purchase much easier because I knew I could do so much beyond games with it as well.

[ront @ Aug 1st 2007 6:16AM]

Sony might go further with adding washing machine and microwave capability....so that you wont need to venture far into the laundry room and kitchen for fresh clothes and pizza..

[Tim Batt @ Aug 1st 2007 6:18AM]

Sweet! NZ got something first (even if it was only information) for once! Hoo-ray!

[L.Rawlins @ Aug 1st 2007 6:22AM]

If this is true. I'm 110% in. I've been waiting for the sodding X360 to include a digital tuner since day one. If the PS3 does it, I'll swing that way instead.

It's not a case of 'why?', and more a case of 'why not?!'... since the device has got a built-in HDD and Wi-Fi, and resides underneath the gogglebox in the lounge anyway... it makes perfect sense to incorporate a digital tuner into the package too.

This is a fantastic development as far as this Brit is concerned.

[Andrew @ Aug 1st 2007 8:32AM]

The Xbox 360 won't have a cable or satellite tuner, it's going to have an IPTV upgrade. It's supposed to be coming later this year.

[Jakob @ Aug 1st 2007 6:22AM]

I think it is a good add-on. Regarding the 4 GB limit, PS3 can just
split them up, and view the recording as one file!Freeview, does that
mean DVB-T? So it isn't just UK? Also Denmark and the rest of Europe,
who is using DVB-T?

And if that is going to happening I will buy a 250 GB HDD!!

[david @ Aug 1st 2007 10:27AM]

IT is so easy to upgrade the HD in the PS3, so I'm not worried. I upgraded the HD in my TIVO to 400 hours and it took 30 minutes, the PS3 is easier than that! but I'm not so crazy about an external tuner. It would have to be an OTA or cable, I can't see Dish or DirecTV working with them for a box.

[Paul @ Aug 1st 2007 12:12PM]

IMHO, game consoles are meant to be an extenstion of your media, not a media server. I think Microsoft's strategy of using the 360 as a media center extender makes much more sense. I don't want to have to leave my console running all the time in order to record TV. PC's, sitting in an office or a closet somewhere are much better suited for this type of thing.I'm also not much of a fan for the 360 IPTV thing.
Actually, I think it would be really cool if they could do it without actually storing anything on the HDD locally. Rather, everything should just live in the cloud so when I want to go watch the latest American Idol it can just stream it down live instead of having to record it to my console first. Let the big companies invest in server side storage so every customer doesn't have to invest in hard drives locally.

[L.Rawlins @ Aug 1st 2007 6:28AM]

Yup, this is awesome for our gradual transition to widespread DVB-T in Europe. I hope that this gets incorporated IN the box at some point though. I get the impression it's going to be a 'tacked on' plug-in jobby to start with.

[R3T5 @ Aug 1st 2007 6:47AM]

Wonder when will we get the ATSC tuner here in NA.. hmmm... hope is a low cost add-on...

Nfinity, HD DVD is more expensive than BD... do U know what is cheap and what is expensive? We r totally not talking about Affordability here...
The cost to make BD is more than HDDVD, in short HDDVD has a higher profit margin.. so U r buying a more expensive product when U go HDDVD...

[Karl @ Aug 1st 2007 6:50AM]

Actually Engadget, unlike the 360, the PS3 allows you to put in your own hard drive. It's very easy to do, well explained in the manual, so you can upgrade the storage to whatever size drive you can find.

As for the FAT limit, that's imposed on external drives. NTFS (the majority filesystem) is closed-source. There are open-source efforts to try and create a filesystem driver for linux (NTFS-3G), but it has severe limitations and isn't of production quality just yet.

I very much like this idea. It's funny how people flame the effort to add a tuner, yet those same people applauded the 360's media center extender functionality. Media Centers are awesome devices, and I'm glad to see them proliferating.

[mattclarkie @ Aug 1st 2007 8:11AM]

HD Freeview. Maybe you fancy Americans get that, but over in Europe HD Satelite is a premium service and offers very few Channels.

Maybe by 2012 Europe will have few channels offering Free HD programming. BBC HD for example hopes to exist in the UK on Freeview when the analogue signal is turned off. But for now any PVR will merely be SD so 80Gb will be fine for around 40 hours of recording, maybe more depending on the compression.

[superaktieboy @ Aug 1st 2007 7:04AM]

@ATT
the 4GB limit is nothing that can stop, i mean you know winRar, it can make everything in parts, so something similar can happen with the PS3.

@Ross & Nfinity
Microsoft - The Xbox 360 = $399.99
Microsoft HD DVD Player for Xbox 360 = $149.99
Total = $549.68

PS3 (60GB) + BluRay (which is winning from HD DVD) = $499.99

now tell me what would you have rather bought? the PS3 or 360.. also think of it as ps3 getting more exclusive games than the 360!!
oh i got these prices from you bestbuy.com website!!

@John
You're right, but you got the ability, and i would do the same just make the sales go up, wouldn't you??
I am not sure what the "Windows Media Center Extender built in" feature of the 360 is but knowing Windows XP Media Center i think that is similar to Media Center, so the only thing needed i think is the receiver!! but then again i am not a 360 user yet (i will be shortly) so i might be wrong about this!!

anyways, my self i've got a Freeview and a PS3 and i'd rather sell my freeview on Ebay and watch tv on my PS3 than have two seperate devices, though that's me, and i like to have as less of devices as possible but still having whatever the device does, but people are different!!

greetzz

[Mogg @ Aug 1st 2007 8:24AM]

Going to update the pricing due to the 360 price drop.

Microsoft - The Xbox 360 = $349.99 (price drop in CC ad)
Microsoft HD DVD Player for Xbox 360 = $149.99

360 (which is winning the console sales) + HD DVD = $499.98 ( OMGz! you save a penny too!)
PS3 (60GB) + BluRay (which is winning from HD DVD) = $499.99

I think both are good systems, but for now Xbox 360 has the superior games.

[david @ Aug 1st 2007 10:30AM]

Unfortunately it's the Wii that's winning the "console war" not the 360 OR the PS3.

[superaktieboy @ Aug 1st 2007 1:07PM]

nope your wrong, its the PS2 thats winning at the moment, dont know with howmany sales but its kicking the but out of the 360, ps3 and the wii.. and knowing that only the games and the controllers between them are different, id say PS2 shud actually be a nextgen console as everybody is calling the wii nextgen (though if either one is not called nextgen the other one shouldn't be called a nextgen console either!!

[floridafitz @ Aug 4th 2007 11:50AM]

I dont have the exact list of exclusive games, but its not the quantity, its the quality. As far as that goes, the PS3 is finally coming out with some intriguing games, ie Lair and Warhawk, but the few games that there are wont justify my purchase of a second system. I think the more features EACH console adds, the better for all of us.

[Grant @ Aug 1st 2007 7:53AM]

well i guess that explains the push for larger HDD in PS3s.
SCEJ and SCEA are probably gonna smack the shit out of Sony NZ for letting the cat out of the bag so early.

[Rob @ Aug 1st 2007 7:59AM]

I'm in on this one.
So, let's hope that the additional hardware is not too expensive.

[dally @ Aug 1st 2007 8:06AM]

This is such a good idea, especially since Sony has already released some quality DVRs and could easily integrate this new functionality without extra research or whatever.
I hope they do dual HD tuner though

[brad @ Aug 1st 2007 8:06AM]

great this will go well with the 2 HDMI ports, Rumble, 100% backward compatability and the including HDMI cable in every PS3 box....


more promises from sony, didnt we all learn something from E3 that Sony talks before it knows if its possible

[Dahk @ Aug 1st 2007 9:09AM]

Well you're really just FINDING things to argue about. They don't even go hand in hand.

Sony never promised rumble from the beginning. NOW they're looking at it AFTER they settled the deal with Immersion. Rumblaxis announcement should be there at TGS this year.

I don't believe they promised an HDMI Cable - but I could be wrong. In any case, go to some freaking deal store, and buy the cheapest one, because you don't need extra expensive shielded cables for an HDMI cable.

True on the 2 HDMIs, and well, they DID have strong BC on the 20/60GB PS3. Besides, even the EE-less 60GB has over 70% backwards compatibility.

And whats even worse, THIS ISN'T A PROMISE. It's not an official announcement!

[Andrew @ Aug 1st 2007 8:36PM]

You forgot the several ethernet ports. And the USB charging cable with each (rumbling boomerang) controller.

But, I will say this, I own one, and it is amazing.

I am pretty psyched (as much as one can be at an announcement made by Sony) about this, and it would be sweet. Until it becomes apparent that Sony isnt going to deliver (a month or two), My plans for a tivo purchase are officially on hold.

[mattclarkie @ Aug 1st 2007 8:14AM]

Why did my post get added as a reply to a random post. I didn't click REPLY.

Engadget, your new posting system has been buggy for weeks now.

[Kenofthedead @ Aug 1st 2007 8:35AM]

Or I'll just save time and effort and stick to my PC.

[shaun @ Aug 1st 2007 8:56AM]

this is great, it will be a complete media hub with this add on


wait a minute I've forgotten to bash sony in this comment, maybe I don't belong here..

[Jeff @ Aug 1st 2007 8:56AM]

I don't get this at all. And I'm the KING of DVR's. And a PS3 owner.

I've owned Tivo, I've used Cablevision's and Verizon's HD-DVR's, I've built my own MythTV box *and* my own Windows Media Center box. I've even tried Snapstream.

I can't see how *anything* Sony does with an HD tuner would be worthwhile here with all of these other options. What, they're going to give it an OTA tuner? Well, that's great if you don't have *any* other DVR, I guess. Have fun with those five channels. Meanwhile, *any* existing cable or satellite customer can get 40 or more HD channels and 150 more SD channels with a DVR for like $5 extra per month. Most people aren't even going to feel that on their bill.

I can understand this being useful in countries like New Zealand or parts of Europe where HD and DVR's are a lot less pervasive. And bear in mind, it has *only* been mentioned so far as a New Zealand upgrade. I would seriously doubt it will ever be released in the US.

What would be more useful in the US would be to vastly expand the PS3's media playing, streaming and hosting options. The PS3 already has some almost-useful streaming capabilities, but they're so neutered that I usually never bother. It only supports a few formats and you can't natively transfer any files to the system itself (you can with a third-party app). If Sony really beefed this up, they'd have something that could compete with the 360's Media Center Extender functionality (and if they'd allow file transfer back and forth, they'd beat the 360's functionality). And they could do it with a simple software upgrade to existing systems.

The other thing that would be great in the US - though it will never happen - would be CableCard support. It would be quite awesome to see a CC attachment for the PS3 - that *would* make it a really competitive DVR, provided the accompanying software wasn't completely f'd up. I will not be holding my breath, though.

[Karl @ Aug 1st 2007 9:12AM]

Onec they've got the DVR software done, I can't see a reason not to release a cable or DVB-S tuner.

Besides, if you're in the UK (and I imagine it's a similar story elsewhere), Freeview offers loads of channels. Check it out, it's actually pretty decent. And there's BBC-HD int esting (alas no OFCOM spectrum allocation for HDTV)

[Tim @ Aug 1st 2007 10:25AM]

I don't own a Tivo or any other DVR, so if the PS3 can handle gaming and DVR capabilities, I'm definitely in, especially if they keep the service free.

Unless MS gives us more details about IPTV, a PS3 is going into my living room this fall.

[superaktieboy @ Aug 1st 2007 1:36PM]

you mean paying £5 per month and then later on being ripped off like they did to me? i was paying £5 for away to NTL, and sudden on my bill appeared £15, when i called them: "the packets are changed and thus is the price"!!
so id rather have something that has only one payment!!

[Andrew @ Aug 1st 2007 9:07AM]

If it had cable card, I would def buy!

[Ian Jardine @ Aug 1st 2007 9:14AM]

You NAILED it Andrew!

[Ryan Smith @ Aug 1st 2007 9:14AM]

I've been doing this with my 360 ever since Vista Beta came out. Unless the PS3 has two digital tuners and one analog, a 500GB hard drive for media, and it can record 3 sources at once without slowing gameplay, then it won't do me any good.