TGS hands-on: PSP 1seg TV tuner

by Andrew Yoon { Sep 22nd 2007 at 1:11AM }

The 1seg tuner for PSP makes us jealous of Japanese PSP owners. The tiny peripheral attaches to the top of the system, and allows users to tune into a variety of broadcast channels. The video quality at the Tokyo Game Show floor was stellar, with very minimal artifacting seen in the video. It's easy to change channels through a simple intuitive interface which overlays over the video quite nicely. A variety of video resize options can be readily accessed by bringing up the options menu with the Triangle button.

If there's a complaint we would have about the 1seg tuner, we'd say it has to be the delay that comes when switching channels. It takes a full second or so for the system to display video of the next channel. Certainly not a major hindrance, especially when considering the quality of video that's produced on such a small peripheral. Japanese Joystiq readers will want to check it out.

Tags: 1seg, tgs07

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Hashbrown_Hunter @ Sep 22nd 2007 2:18AM

I'm glad this is actually working. I was afraid it was going to be...well bad. But it's not, so congrats Sony.

Peter @ Sep 22nd 2007 6:17AM

Is this a peripheral that us North American PSP owners will be able to import like the camera and the GPS unit or is it some how locked to the Japanese regional hardware?

Chris Powell @ Sep 22nd 2007 6:43AM

Andrew, there's a small delay when changing channels on the LocationFree Player, too. I wonder if it's just a technological obstacle that hasn't had a fix yet.

While this is certainly cool, I do just fine with my LocationFree Player, and the best thing is I don't have to have a peripheral attached to my PSP to watch TV. On the downside though, I do have to be at a WiFi hotspot.