GC: PlayTV unveiled for PS3

By Robert Purchese Published 22 August, 2007

Watch, record what you like.

Sony has taken the wraps off a new television tuner and personal video recorder for PS3 in its Games Convention 2007 press conference.

Dubbed PlayTV, it will let you watch and record your favourite shows on your console completely independently of each other - so you can view something while saving something else. If you like.

'GC: PlayTV unveiled for PS3' Screenshot 1

There they are, one big happy, telly-watching family.

You'll be able to choose programmes to keep on your hard drive by selecting them from a fancy seven-day guide, and even control it all remotely using your PSP - in case you forgot to tell it to record something before you left for work. Or you could just stream it to your PSP and watch it elsewhere.

It will use the Digital Video Broadcasting standard, and be able to intelligently display the picture in high or standard definition depending on the capabilities of your TV.

"The introduction of PlayTV really will extend the already broad entertainment credentials of PS3, and makes it an exceptionally attractive proposition for the whole family," said David Reeves, big cheese of Sony Europe.

It's so easy your ageing parents could probably use it - or so we're told, and will be available in early 2008 across the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

A price is yet to be mentioned.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (95) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • lennon #1 5 years ago

    Erm. Has their press conference even started yet?

  • Monkey_Puncher #2 5 years ago

    That's great, what about games?

  • hjarg #3 5 years ago

    Oooh, great machine? Does it play games as well?

  • rhinoxious #4 5 years ago

    I've got a media centre already, but I'm really curious to see how this stacks up against it.

    Good move by Sony, as MS are unlikely to follow suit as they'll step on their own Media Centre business. Though a 60GB hard disk doesn't give you a lot of storage at 1.5-2GB an hour.

  • Nova5lag #5 5 years ago

    So the heads up was out on this one with an embargo huh? ;-)))

  • The-Bodybuilder #6 5 years ago

    Yet MS still haven't said a word on thier whole on-demand tv thingy with BT Vision.

  • mcmonkeyplc #7 5 years ago

    one word:

    IPTV

  • lennon #8 5 years ago

    How is that word pronounced? :)

  • Disco_Stu360 #9 5 years ago

    erm I've got Sky HD... but thanks anyway!

  • Mr-Brett #10 5 years ago

    Good idea but I'd be interested to know how much it costs.

  • Arcadiian #11 5 years ago

    @ lennon.

    "ipp-t-ff".

  • attep #12 5 years ago

    Awesome. Been hoping they'd do this for ages. I don't have Sky HD and with this don't need to buy a PVR recorder either. The ability to stream it to your PSP, great. My missus will never miss eastenders again :)

  • rashes #13 5 years ago

    if you have Sky+ is this redundant?
    Does it mean you could cancel your Sky+/Sky HD subscription?

  • Razzajazz #14 5 years ago

    It it uses DVB, would I be right in assuming that you'll only be able to view Freeview channels? If so, pretty pointless, IMO.

  • Monkey_Puncher #15 5 years ago

    "Monkey_Puncher (and other fanboys) : why do you care? Going to post your crap in every Sony related thread? "

    I'm a fanboy because I expect a console to play games?

    Wow...that's logical

  • The-Bodybuilder #16 5 years ago

    >""ipp-t-ff". "

    Does it come with free doovd?

  • el_pollo_diablo #17 5 years ago

    This should be free. Surely it's just a(nother) firmware update?

  • The-Bodybuilder #18 5 years ago

    >"I'm a fanboy because I expect a console to play games? "

    Or maybe moaning about "where's the games" on an announcement that has nothing to with games, in a convention that rarely (if ever) talks about new games).

    Oh, and the fact that games are coming.

  • RazorObsession #19 5 years ago

    Can I, for instance, download all the advertisements, of all the games that I could play on the 360?

  • RazorObsession #20 5 years ago

    @Bodybuilder

    you do know its the GAMES CONVENTION right?

  • Artemis_Matsas #21 5 years ago

    Well, it would be nice if the tuner was dual: digital and analog.
    The switch off date for analog is still far far away, and on some countries (eg. Greece) there is still nothing much to look on Digital Terrestrial.

  • rhinoxious #22 5 years ago

    Yes it'll only recieve freeview channels, unles sony and sky do some kind of mega deal!

    Even then it doesn't mention the present of a CAM module to take the neccesary decoder card. If so then no Setanta either I'd think.

  • deepmenace #23 5 years ago

    so it'll basically be a ps3 compatible USB twin tuner?
    i'm definately up for this as i'm currently setting up a very old pc as a media centre and its being a pain in the ar5e.

    Price guess anyone? Ł59.99 im going with...

  • Tomo #24 5 years ago

    So, it's going to play Freeview? Is that correct?

    If so, that's a damn fine addition imo.

  • Wrestlevania #25 5 years ago

    "and even control it all remotely using your PSP"

    Any word on whether you can actively switch between your F1 car's rear view mirror and this? We need to know--it's important.

  • icon-snake #26 5 years ago

    IPTV?, do you really need that... unless you have some sort of financial problems to get sky or even regular cable. If not then IPTV is a waste in general. Whatever MS throws remember Home will defeat network integrated things by MS.

  • Tomo #27 5 years ago

    Unless it's a rip-off :/

  • RazorObsession #28 5 years ago

    blooreh, TV, music, wi-fi, intarwebz, connectivity to PSP, adjusting temperature of fridge freezer, opening garage door, running bath, pre-heating oven, changing shit filled nappies, dildonics, massage with happy ending, the list of future capabilities goes on...

    Is there anything apart from playing good games that the PS3 cannot do?

    /goads fan boys with stick

  • geepersd #29 5 years ago

    @ deepmenace - I thought it was a single tuner. mentions recording while watching something recorded, but I've missed anything saying record one channel, while watching another or record two at once.

    still If I love my PVR and I reckon this is a pretty decent addition

  • lockload #30 5 years ago

    I bought a twin tuner freeview bix from argos for Ł99 and it works well and i dont need to leave my PS3 on all the time to record programs (as it eats power)

  • The-Bodybuilder #31 5 years ago

    >"you do know its the GAMES CONVENTION right?"

    heh. I was hoping someone wouldn't point this out after I made my post.

    Too late to delete my post.

  • morriss #32 5 years ago

    Two words: Original idea?

  • JaysonG #33 5 years ago

    Bollocks to the carbon footprint this looks sweet as...

  • miiiguel #34 5 years ago

    So it's a VCR ?

    we can watch all those TBA games' trailers.

  • tonynibbles #35 5 years ago

    They did also today announce *275* games being released BEFORE christmas.

    Ahem. wtf.

    It's on ThreeSpeech, David Reeves actually said that!

  • Razz #36 5 years ago

    While this is good from a technical standpoint as someone who doesn't watch much TV this doesn't really appeal to me. I would've preferred soem game announcements and a price cut. :/

  • JYM60 #37 5 years ago

    @miiguel

    "So it's a VCR ?

    we can watch all those TBA games' trailers."

    Have you got a life man? Thats some sad shit.

    It's not the best thing in the world, its not a game. But it's a nice addition at least.


  • Weezer #38 5 years ago

    Press-release-tastic.

  • polar #39 5 years ago

    This sounds really cool. So Sony are finally starting to deliver on their home entertainment centre goal, now all they need are some decent exclusives and a price cut.

  • Psychotext #40 5 years ago

    Sadly without being able to feed Virgin / Sky to it I'm not really won over by this.

  • Kostabi #41 5 years ago

    I was contemplating buying a TVR but now I'll just wait and see how this PlayTV malarky pans out before throwing down some cash.

    Game drought or not, Sony have really taken Microsoft's "own the living room" ball and beaten them to death with it. IPTV can go swivel, I'd much rather timeshift stuff myself than take up all my bandwidth downloading shows on a whim through BT Vision.

  • woodnotes #42 5 years ago

    @ kostabi

    But you have to leave you ps3 switched on at all times to record content, and you can't play games at the same time. As with MS's IPTV, you might aswell just buy a dedicated set top box instaed. This is shit.

  • Zanuah #43 5 years ago

    So not for the Netherlands then? Or any of the other countries for that matter... It's kinda cool but if it's limited to which country you live in then... Why Sony, why?

  • miiiguel #44 5 years ago

    JYM60: this is getting really unfair, why my fellow EG'ers keep picking on me just because I don't dig these non-gaming news from Sony and Nintendo ?

    Wait, this is EuroGAMER, isn't it ? let me check...
    Edited by 1 at 22/08/07 @ 19:47

  • numptyboymatt #45 5 years ago

    I do find this genuinely interesting and all that, but what I actually bought my PLAYstation for was to PLAY games.....

  • soundtrack #46 5 years ago

    Well I bought my PLAYstation to PLAY games and to PLAY video and to PLAY music. And stuff

  • miiiguel #47 5 years ago

    true but we don't really need 7x 3.2 Ghz CPU's to watch TV and play music do we?

  • NewYork #48 5 years ago

    Really this needs some kind of video input (like SCART) so I could have plugged by Sky+ into it, as though it were a VCR. Would that have been so hard to do?

  • SniperWolf #49 5 years ago

    Still don't want one

  • Suttieb #50 5 years ago

    I just got a BT Vision box, delivered installed and demo'd for free just cos I have BT Broadband! Dual recorder/On Demand and I can still watch another channel on my tv..
    The interface is better than Sky+ was! Couldn't recommend it more!

  • MrsPacMan #51 5 years ago

    Who gives a shite. Space Giraffe is on XBLive!!! Ohhhhhhh Yessssssss!!

  • Malacath #52 5 years ago

    It seems that the PS3 seems to be anything but a games console at the moment.
    Where are all the games?
    Maybe if they concentrated on games then the console would actually sell.

  • dredd97 #53 5 years ago

    Who gives a shite. Space Giraffe is on XBLive!!! Ohhhhhhh Yessssssss!!

    and it looks like a bag of shit...1980's commodore64 shit...

    but plays nice in a gridrunner kinda way...

    he should have done is defender homage sheeps in space.. now that was good..

  • Bumhug360 #54 5 years ago

    I noticed today that PSW magazine comes with a free HD DVD this month, is there and HD DVD player on the way as well?

  • MrsPacMan #55 5 years ago

    come back when you've got a game this good on the PS3.

    Only Ł4 too

  • dllord #56 5 years ago

    Pretty cool, but i've just got Sky HD so i wouldn't bother getting it myself!

  • Ryze #57 5 years ago

    Nice idea.

    Now, announce some games.

  • GitSomE_UK #58 5 years ago

    Woohoo was going to buy a recorder not now... when MGS4 is released Mr Sony will be getting my cash.

  • Downside #59 5 years ago

    /underwhelmed

    Look at the great reviews the Sony PVR gets on Amazon, I wonder if this will fare any better?

    This only makes sense if you have a 500gb drive, really, there'll be loads of stuff to keep on there once you get into it.

    The Upscaling should be sweet too - I have a media centre PC with a Nvidia card and decoder software, and freeview looks amazing - it does a far far better job than any TV - so the processing power of the Ps3 should make freeview look great on HD screens.

    As for Sky, meh, freeview has more than enough for me - there's always the pub for footy matches :)

    Still doesn't sell the PS3 to me though, but it will be a good toy to get if you already have one and get DVB broadcasts.

  • Hypnopedia #60 5 years ago

    >Well I bought my PLAYstation to PLAY 3 games and to PLAY video and to PLAY music. And stuff

    Fixed!!

    ;D

  • JYM60 #61 5 years ago

    miiguel

    OK, it was a bit unfair, but your pointless digs are getting tiresome.

  • Machiavellian #62 5 years ago

    If you cannot play games while recording TV shows then this device is useless unless you do not use your PS3 to play games.

    I really do not want to be on the schedule of my DVR when I want to play games.

  • TGO #63 5 years ago

    Did that just say PlayTV will be in HD?
    HD DVR freeview?! I'm sold

  • Carlo #64 5 years ago

    I can't wait for this.

    I can finally get rid of my Media Center...

    Or can I?

    Will PlayTV play XVid?
    Will it record while I'm playing a game?
    HD-DVB is sweet news though. The England/Germany game was broadcast in HD last night, but I didn't have a decoder for it and had to watch it in SD.

  • mazzl #65 5 years ago

    nice move put this together with a linux based media player on the ps3 ....
    ms should catch up quick and allow xvid and mp3's from and external usb drive NOW!

  • Luna-C #66 5 years ago

    News flash for all you whiney aholes, if you already have a PVR or SKY+ or whatever you DONT have to buy this, get it? Plus the games ARE coming and lots of them so stop whining like little bitches. thanks.

  • soundtrack #67 5 years ago

    PS3 has been mooted as a TV recorder and all-singing all-dancing Home Entertainment System for 4 years though, so I'm just glad the functionality's finally turning up (I don't have Sky+ or whatever, so YAY!)
    Edited by 1 at 23/08/07 @ 09:22

  • soundtrack #68 5 years ago

    @Hypnopedia

    Exactly right! How did you know?!

  • LazyDan #69 5 years ago

    How many people with a PS3 wouldn't have at least Freeview anyway? How many HD tellys these days don't have a Freeview tuner in them themselves?

    This is a bit like a car manufacturer giving away free bus passes for every car purchased.

  • moggsy #70 5 years ago

    Will you be able to play games while recording a TV show though? If you can't then there really is no point...

  • Jos #71 5 years ago

    I think it's great for PS3.

    It's an additional selling point for a family purchase - a broadly equitable PVR would cost between 100 and 200 pounds.

    It provides upscaling to HD via an HDMI interface - none of the dedicated PVR's do this so far.

    Will cope with HD broadcasts when they come in the year 3000.

    Will be a lot easier to update than the over the air broadcasts PVR's generally use.

    The PS/3 hard drive is easily upgraded if you feel you need to store hours of material, but the point of a PVR isn't a permanent archive, it's a timeshifter.

    PSP connectivity - less important if you only use it as an expensive remote, but the remote access for scheduling and streaming sounds interesting.

    I think this will push me to a PS/3 purchase when I come round to replacing my first generation PVR.

  • soundtrack #72 5 years ago

    A better announcement would have been "Guess what, that's actually a Blu-ray burner under the hood. To be unlocked with firmware update 2.0"
    That would have been sweet.

    /back to daydream

  • Sebo #73 5 years ago

    Agreed, if you could burn to blue-ray with PS3, the TV thing would be much much sweeter.

  • RexRunti #74 5 years ago

    @Downside

    If you have a media centre PC. You should get an XBox 360 as it's a media centre extender. Hey even if your PC isn't you can still stream movies, music, pictures etc. to it. I was watching Mysterious Cities of Gold the other night on my TV via my 360 even though it was stored on my PC, because let's face it no matter how big console HDDs get it's not going to match PCs and I doubt Sony or MS will let us download Cities of Gold from their respective sites.

    As for Sony's idea, the freeview side of things is kinda pointless as everyone has freeview, the PVR could have it's uses but only if you can record and play games at the same time.

  • SeesThroughAll #75 5 years ago

    You know, it sure gives the console an edge by letting it be a DVR, but the feature in itself is useless with HDDs no larger than 80GB. Average Joe won't even know that he can upgrade the HDD.

  • Dr_Rofl #76 5 years ago

    IPTV > This

  • Carlo #77 5 years ago

    ¨Will cope with HD broadcasts when they come in the year 3000. ¨

    Freeview is ALREADY being broadcast in HD for some programmes. For example, England Germany football game was in High def if you had the means to decode it last night.
    Edited by 1 at 23/08/07 @ 11:15

  • Carlo #78 5 years ago

    ¨IPTV > This¨

    No.

  • The-Bodybuilder #79 5 years ago

    What the heck is IPTV anyways? And where is it?

  • moggsy #80 5 years ago

    Freeview is ALREADY being broadcast in HD for some programmes. For example, England Germany football game was in High def if you had the means to decode it last night.

    Eh? There is no HD Freeview in the UK. How is this therefore possible?

  • moggsy #81 5 years ago

    What the heck is IPTV anyways? And where is it?

    Here's an example.

  • JaysonG #82 5 years ago

    Carlo Knows.

  • JaysonG #83 5 years ago

    If you live in london the BBC are trialing BBC HD on freeview through the crystal palace transmitter

  • TheUnionFrag #84 5 years ago

    It's so easy your ageing parents could probably use it - or so we're told, and will be available in early 2008 across the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

    Sure, because my ageing parents drink Hip Cola, go surfing and have a PS3 in their lounge . . .

    Whats the big deal exactly? A PC can do this, and has been able to do it for quite a while.

  • Raya #85 5 years ago

    So this bundle will set you back how much!

  • Ace_McCloud #86 5 years ago

    Sounds alright.... but still don't want one. Not looking forward to having to deal with Laymen touting this as why PS3 is such a great buy though.. *sigh*

  • moggsy #87 5 years ago

    If you live in london the BBC are trialing BBC HD on freeview through the crystal palace transmitter

    Oh. I thought that had ended yonks ago.

    As for Freeview HD which isn't a trial in London, it doesn't look like it'll ever happen unfortunately. Ofcom won't give up the bandwidth being freed up by analogue switch off over to the TV companies - it'll be auctioned off to the highest bidder (i.e. the mobile phone companies).

    They have recently suggested that the TV companies should use the bandwidth already allocated to them. Like that's going to happen - yeh we'll just switch off 4 channels to allow one to be broadcast in HD - we don't really need the advertising revenue anyway...

  • djkix #88 5 years ago

    I play games in order to *avoid* watching TV. Well done Sony.

  • deaner #89 5 years ago

    Bit bored of people saying "where are the games" now.

    There was one more PS3 game in the GC line-up than there were X360 games, and the PAL console has only been out for five months.

    Anyone half-way objective, let alone in the Sony camp for this generation - can see that the software library arguement will only holdup at the X360 end for a few more months.

    If it's the only thing XBox fans can think of to undermine the announcement of what's simply an excellent accessory for the PS3, then they are really scraping the barrel.

    Please, if you must Sony bash - either own one or find a more original bashing-stick!

  • RazorObsession #90 5 years ago

    @ Deaner

    OK, so we shouldn't chant "Where are the games?" at your face piece anymore.
    Sony have announced some games, so thats fair enough.

    In the spirit of fairness and good sportsmanship, we shall change to
    "Where are the GOOD games?"

    /psyche

  • deaner #91 5 years ago

    Psyche?

    Are you PJ, or Duncan?

  • deaner #92 5 years ago

    I did the same with a PS3. Want a medal?

  • Downside #93 5 years ago

    @RexRunti

    > you should get a xbox360, it's a media centre..
    I have an XBOX360 :-)

    I'm just happy the Ps3 owners have got a gadget coming that they can buy which turns the PS3 into something almost useful.

    I know that the 360 does this already, I just didn't want to harp on about it :-)

  • deaner #94 5 years ago

    You can stream a TV signal directly into it, write it to the HDD on the fly, while simultaneously watching a different TV feed?

    Or do you mean via an additional Media Centre?
    Edited by 1 at 24/08/07 @ 00:40

  • deaner #95 5 years ago

    And I'd imagine you want something decent that isn't an FPS. But you wont get it!