A Peek At Sony’s PlayTV DVR Add-on For The PS3

Sony’s semi-official ThreeSpeech blog has posted a video teaser of the forthcoming PlayTV add-on for the PlayStation3. The PlayTV is a DVB-T dual-tuner USB module that gives the PS3 TV tuning and recording functionality. As previously announced the PlayTV will be released first in European countries, with other DVB-T territories to follow. To be clear, DVB-T is not used in North America, we use ATSC. So the PlayTV, as announced, will not work here. However, there have been rumors of an ATSC version.

The video provides a few brief glimpses of the PlayTV UI. Looks like pretty standard fare, though I am intrigued by the thumbnail navigation of recordings. That’s something I haven’t seen before. Personally I don’t think it is as useful as titles – I’m far more likely to remember the title of something than I am a 15-second clip of the show – but it is interesting. The built-in place-shifting over the Internet to a PSP is also a nice feature.

One thing though, it seemed to be a glaring omission, but the video doesn’t mention scheduled recordings at all. They show an EPG, tuning live TV, and mention recording what you’re watching now – but not a word on setting up scheduled recordings. There’s also the question of the PS3 recording if it is doing something else – like gaming or playing a BD/DVD. I’d suspect the answer there is no, since PlayTV is utilizing the PS3′s CPU.

Picked up from PVR Wire @ TV Squad who noticed it at TG Daily.

About MegaZone

MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
This entry was posted in DVR, Gaming and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.