Sony's PlayTV for PS3 gets shown off, still only for Europe

Sony's been relatively mum on its Slingbox-like PlayTV add-on for the PlayStation 3 since it announced it last fall, but it's now finally starting to show it off for all to see and, thanks to the BBC's dot.life blog, we now have a pretty good idea of what European PS3 users can expect. As you can see in the video after the break, the PlayTV software appears to be straightforward enough, and includes the usual program guide, and options to pause and rewind live Freeview TV, as well as the ability to record one channel while watching another (thanks to the dual tuners in the device itself). Also on display is the PlayTV's ability to work with your PlayStation Portable via Remote Play, which'll let you watch live TV (or recorded programming) from anywhere with a WiFi connection. One of the few things it can't do, it seems, is record programming in the background while you're playing a game, although the developers are apparently "working hard" to add that feature. Still no word on a price or exact release date though, so you have a bit longer to be spared the inevitable bragging from your European friends.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Simon P @ Feb 14th 2008 2:22PM]

before it gets all serious up in hizzere, just wanted to say that i love my ps3 not just as a console (enough games for me personally) but just as much for all the other stuff it can do that i never really expected to use as much as i've ended up doing. this will be just one more sweet, sweet function in a long, long list. looking forward to it. i'm european but in the usa, which makes it doubly painful.

[heffeque @ Feb 18th 2008 1:48PM]

I wonder if it'll be compatible with the h.264 HD channels aired on DTT in some European countries. MPEG-2 HD s*ck airy balls.

[WuFu @ Feb 14th 2008 2:31PM]

I find this actually usefull and good to see that sony have gone down this path as im into digital tv recordings.

I own a Nintendo Wii and love it because of the user experience but if I did have the PS3 which I don't will not, I would actuall purchase the PlayTV.

[tom @ Feb 14th 2008 2:35PM]

Wii is great, but my arms get really sore after 30 mins of intense gaming.

Lesson - I think video games should get back to what it used to be, couch potato activity

[WuFu @ Feb 14th 2008 2:39PM]

When I first started to use the Wii that used to happen but not any more.

Im kinda agree and don't with coach potatoe activity because its nice to have both. The one thing is that I find the Wii more intuative to play and fun from an interaction point of view.

I say have cake and eat it:D

[alias_ @ Feb 14th 2008 2:52PM]

wufu is a spammer dont take him seriously, he spammed like ten comments this day.

i agree with tom on this one, when was playing games with ur parents/family fun.. i mean come on. real gamers will still chose xbox 360/ps3 as their console but anyway people buy wii as their second console, having either one of the stated.

and secondly they(sony) are doing this in response to xbox 360 becoming a set top box thanks to BT(british telecom).

and i dont like how micrsoft/nintendo/sony are inlcuding the features in the consoles which is not useful for a certain extent (unless its free) rather than including more good games.

[WuFu @ Feb 14th 2008 3:08PM]

Alias

What gives you the right to call me a spammer as a gimmic and lie, as im certanly not!

Im not talking about playing with parents and family, single player games like Super Mario Galaxy Zelda, Metriod andd Guitar Hero 3!

I game a fair bit on the PC aswell for 1st person shooter games, as I feelits better on the PC.

[Superprime @ Feb 14th 2008 2:43PM]

That's nice. I wonder if they'll also supply a remote instead of the controller

[Fiddlesworth @ Feb 14th 2008 2:55PM]

Diagnosis Murder. :D Daytime tv at its finest.

Attractive and responsive looking UI & EPG there. Virgin Media's HD cable box has a painfully slow response to button presses and the UI is low res. If Sky's HD box is anything like their Sky+ box it's responsive but from what I've seen the UI again isn't HD. Makes a big difference to the amount of info that can be clearly displayed on one screen without scrolling around.

I'm betting SCEE will take feedback from customers about improvement to be made to the UI too. Regular boxes get updates occasionally but the really niggling issues never seem to be addressed.

[Steve Childs @ Feb 14th 2008 6:54PM]

SkyHD is as bad as Sky+, believe me. Although the Planner isn't in HD, it is much clearer over HDMI than Scart at least.

PlayTV is a good product, but I have SkyHD, as such its not really of much use - its only Freeview anyway, which is a fraction of the channels available. Also the fact you can't record anything whilst you're playing a game is a MASSIVE problem with this. For it to be really useful, they need to fix this.

Actually, what would be really useful is if you could plug your Sky+/SkyHD box into the PS3 and use it to control the Sky Box and show recordings / live TV from Sky.

I believe Sony were linking up with Sky for something - that would be, in my mind, a killer App for the PS3.

Where PlayTV will score well is for Kids who have the PS3 in their rooms, but don't have Digital TV. Most adults who have a PS3 will have it in the lounge, where they'll have TV anyway.

Don't get me wrong, its a great ability for the PS3 to have, its just ooh-so-close to being a must-have purchase, but my feeling is that if I did buy it, it would get used for about 30mins when I bought it, watching TV in my office on the PSP saying 'This is soo cool', then it would get put down and used once in a blue moon.

However, should they add the ability to record whilst playing a game, it would be a huge plus and to a lot of people, its a must have feature.

[Garst @ Feb 14th 2008 9:38PM]

Finally! Something usefull for the PS3 to do: watching PAX remotely on your PSP. Is Doc and Touch by an Angel also shown over there?

[Fiddlesworth @ Feb 14th 2008 3:00PM]

All the controller buttons are included on the PS3 Blu-ray remote.

-- "and secondly they(sony) are doing this in response to xbox 360 becoming a set top box thanks to BT(british telecom)."

I don't think the Xbox 360 is well suited as a STB until they can prove it's reliable enough to be left turned on for long periods of time day after day. The PS3's already doing that with Folding@home.

-- "and i dont like how micrsoft/nintendo/sony are inlcuding the features in the consoles which is not useful for a certain extent (unless its free) rather than including more good games."

Staff working on stuff like this and other features of the system software aren't game developers. Doing one doesn't take from the other.

[Gremlin @ Feb 14th 2008 3:02PM]

Awww... why does Europe get this one first?

This feature seems really cool and I would definitely pick one up, but I'm not quite sure I understand the functionality completely. My main question is "will this suffice as an HD DVR?"

[GadgetAzz @ Feb 14th 2008 5:19PM]

Dude, you got the iPhone, iTunes TV Downloads / Film rentals, xbox 360, wii and ps3 before us LOL

All we got is this freeview box LOL

[jaapV @ Feb 15th 2008 4:07AM]

Don't forget the Zune, that didn't make it over here yet....

[Keir @ Feb 15th 2008 4:46AM]

I'm with my fellow European's here.
For the first time we get something pretty cool come to Europe first! And it's actually something I can use!
Looking forward to being able to give it a try :)

[WuFu @ Feb 14th 2008 3:06PM]

Alias

What gives you the right to call me a spammer as a gimmic and lie, as im certanly not!

Im not talking about playing with parents and family, single player games like Super Mario Galaxy Zelda, Metriod andd Guitar Hero 3!

I game a fair bit on the PC aswell for 1st person shooter games, as I feelits better on the PC.

[alias_ @ Feb 14th 2008 3:16PM]

dude chill i was just kidding ghave u heard of sarcasm, and in response to the wee having games, i face it that it has some games worth playing on the wii, but is there anything not with mario on it, or rest of them are all kids games.

[WuFu @ Feb 14th 2008 4:19PM]

Ok
Sarcasim I get, I use it in my life every day. There are a fewtitles for the Wii which don't revolve around Mario.

I dono if they are any good, so you might have a point, but imwaitingfor Super Smash brothers for the Wii, will be an awsoome multiplayer online game.

[CosterMonger @ Feb 14th 2008 3:10PM]

remote play is not enough, could I just transfer/transcode with commercials to my PSP (something that I do with my compy anyways).

on the bus I prefer watching video, then playing games {bus wobbles too much, sun glares out LCD}.

[Jim H @ Feb 14th 2008 3:13PM]

So cool. I can't wait to get one of those. If it turns up soon I might even save a pile of cash by not needing to buy a new LCD TV as I can watch this stuff through my projector. Come on Sony, get this thing in the damn shops pronto!

[SoloMalee @ Feb 14th 2008 3:15PM]

Nice feature...if only it was DVB-S for Satellite based reception. And...so is a PS3 quieter than an Xbox 360? That's the only reason I haven't bothered with a 360 yet as an MCE extender.

[pepticburrito @ Feb 14th 2008 3:31PM]

Yes, it's significantly quieter than a 360. I can't even hear my PS3 over the ambient noise of the house, the 360 becomes the noise of the house.

[sinjinn @ Feb 14th 2008 6:50PM]

ps3 is near silent from the couch. the 360 is like having an avrrgae desktop pc in your room (annoying).

[SoloMalee @ Feb 15th 2008 2:02AM]

Thanks for the comments about noise compared to the 360...Seems I need to keep a serious eye on what is coming for the PS3 it seems :-D

[Fiddlesworth @ Feb 14th 2008 3:20PM]

Yes, especially the 40GB model. The PS3 uses a large lower-rpm fan which makes less noise.

[Hemppis @ Feb 14th 2008 3:41PM]

What, no DVB-C version? No card reader?

Useless for me then, what a shame :(

[MattyG @ Feb 14th 2008 4:04PM]

wow i'd love that, i think it might get me to buy a ps3 but probably not a portable. i hope they have some kind of web interface for such a thing so it can be done from the pc instead

and yes get it to record if the ps3 is in use too, this thing is going to get pretty busy lol

any idea if it'll display content you put on there yourself from external sources

[DrXym @ Feb 14th 2008 4:10PM]

This device could be a killer application in Europe but the PS3 needs more than 40Gb. I see this thing selling like hotcakes if they bundled with a larger 120Gb model for 100 euros more.

[cyco666 @ Feb 14th 2008 5:31PM]

You can change your drive to whatever you want, even 1TB drive if it suits you, it's quite simple.

Back to the topic at hand:
Do you need a TV provider? I'm in switzerland, and have Bluwin TV, which is crap. Could I use this provider for the PS3 TV? I have a 20 Mb/s connection for the TV, is that enough? What are the specs?
A lot of questions, but I'm actually quite interested by that, and the PS3 gets better with time (games, blu/ray and so on and now TV)

[DrXym @ Feb 15th 2008 9:41AM]

The PlayTV thing is for receiving terrestrial digital TV through an aerial. You don't need a provider or subscription, but your country does need to support free digital broadcasts. I have no idea if Switzerland has but most other EU countries have.

[Nathan @ Feb 14th 2008 4:32PM]

I thought it was sad that I knew that shot was Diagnosis Murder. When I saw someone beat me I felt slightly better.

[PhilxBefore @ Feb 14th 2008 5:16PM]

Awesome! Now you Sony kids can watch TV on the crapper via WiFi!

[Jim H @ Feb 14th 2008 6:03PM]

@cyco666

Freeview is terrestrial digital TV using the DVB-T standard. I don't know what Bluwin TV is but PlayTV has nothing to do with IPTV other than allowing you to watch DVB-T standard TV across the web using your PSP. To do that though you'll need a PS3, PlayTV, DVB-T reception via a terrestrial aerial and a net connection.

Perhaps the Engadget article could've been a bit clearer on these issues though.

[harley.copping @ Feb 14th 2008 6:48PM]

All in glorious 720p...............

[Chino B @ Feb 14th 2008 8:29PM]

Hopefully they would release it to U.S :(

[Umberto Tondo @ Feb 14th 2008 9:28PM]

Will I be able to vew local TV channel where l
live ;with la Cinema.
THANKS

[Miles @ Feb 14th 2008 9:54PM]

And yet the PS Triple still only manages to sell an extra 3 consoles.

[kickback999 @ May 15th 2008 7:35AM]

And thats 3 more than the Failbox 360