PlayTV gets SD upscaler and more in new update

by Majed Athab { Apr 3rd 2009 at 4:30PM }

The European freeview box and recorder known as PlayTV has just gotten a new software update. Several new functions have been added, including: new fast-forward/rewind speeds and new volume control settings. More importantly, users will enjoy the new SD upscaler and direct-to-TV option via the XMB (no more having to go through the PlayTV menu).

So, check out the embedded vid to see Mark Bunting, the producer of PlayTV, explain more about the new features. And, if you haven't gotten it yet, what are you waiting for? It's available now.

Tags: playtv, scee

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

SourceJR @ Apr 3rd 2009 4:38PM

Id like to see PlayTV in the US.

Copland @ Apr 3rd 2009 7:38PM

I like to see this in Japan.
Sony definitely should also release this in other countries besides the European territory.

Darren Tilley @ Apr 3rd 2009 4:45PM

God, I just can't listen to this mumbling idiot.

sc00by_y00 @ Apr 3rd 2009 8:13PM

How was he mumbling ? He sounded clear as day to me whats with the negativity ?

Averna @ Apr 6th 2009 7:39AM

He isnt speaking American! *rollseyes*

Twinturbo120 @ Apr 3rd 2009 4:49PM

Yea I'd like to see it in the states to.

NightTerror X @ Apr 3rd 2009 4:54PM

Everyone news site is saying that the update is out but hasn't been released yet, so annoying. :(

Jake @ Apr 3rd 2009 5:03PM

about time they improved it, it's so shoddy atm

they still need to do a lot of improvements

sc00by_y00 @ Apr 3rd 2009 8:16PM

How is it so shoddy ?

It has the _BEST_ freeview guide out of all of the digital tvs and stbs on the market.
They also confirm that its capable of receiving hd signals..

List to me how this is shoddy as its probably the best freeview receiver here in the uk. Such a small box and its a twin digital receiver, your full of bollocks dude.

Jake @ Apr 4th 2009 6:17AM

well to start with it takes ages to start up
second the guide is still glitchie and clears after an hour or so of watching tv

you can't dual record
you may be able to receive hd signals, but you can't on a normal ariel, nor could you name me a hd free view channel

theres just so much they could add to it....

but please show me where i said i didn't like it and didn't use it?

sc00by_y00 @ Apr 4th 2009 5:59PM

Ages like 10-15 Seconds ? Wow yes thats an incredibly long time.

The guide works for me it is sometimes not synced and takes a while, but never enough to piss me off and its pretty rare (they already rolled out an update to address this a while back).

Did you watch the video ? The only countries pumping HD through the Arial are France and Spain. It will take a while for the technology to develop and be broadcast. That has nothing to do with the PS3 or playTV.. Well done that was a genius comment,..

Oh yeah btw you can record two at the same time. You know when you record a channel and pause live tv ? Thats when it records live tv.. You would need 3 tuners to record 2 channels and watch tv simultaneously. Name me one other freeview STB that allows you to record two channels at the same time..

So these points you raise make it a shoddy product somehow ? Yeah ok whatever man, and some people are just full of shit.

.

sc00by_y00 @ Apr 4th 2009 8:44PM

Jake nothing you have pointedout leads me to believe it is "so shoddy".

The load up is about 15 seconds. You would need 3 tuners to be able to record 2 channels at the same time (you can pause live tv and also you have to be able to watch live tv while you stream - You dont understand how this works.. Its your ignorance not the fault of playtv. Listen to the advertisements again, then go out on the market and find me a freeview box that all9ows 2 recordings at the same time.. -- You would need 3 tuners to do it.

hd freeview through arial only spain and france have hd boradcasts.. Its not the fault of playtv. You completely misunderstand the service.

I dont believe you have playtv.. Look get over it, its probably the best freeview tuner out on the markett. The menu system absolutely rocks its so fluid and fast.

If you had it you would understand what I am talking about ...

Jake @ Apr 5th 2009 12:35PM

http://community.eu.playstation.com/playstationeu/board/message?board.id=417&message.id=40719#M40719

just to let you know i actually had 3 playtv's so stop being a argumentative child and get over the fact that someone isn't exactly stocked with the whole set up he paid 80quid for

sc00by_y00 @ Apr 5th 2009 7:58PM

yes and all of the points you raised were still stupid.. :) £80 ? I paid 50 for it on launch. Ive got it hooked up to a projector so its a freaking god send compared to the umpteen amount of shitty freeview boxes Ive had connectd, it all just plays through the ps3, its freaking kick as.. It does have bugs I wont disagree but no so bad that I would call it shoddy. The picture quality even though SD is very freaking clear as well.

KarlW @ Apr 6th 2009 2:37PM

It's quite good, but I would like to see some more feature updates.

For example, I'd like to record 2 shows at once. Currently, one tuner is set to record, the other is for viewing. I'd like to use both for recording. That would be useful for scheduling conflicting recordings when I'm not at home to watch TV.

cpj.hammond @ Apr 3rd 2009 5:16PM

Its not out yet, don't post **** like this and get my hopes up... UNTIL ITS ACTUALLY LIVE!

theMediaman @ Apr 3rd 2009 5:17PM

OI! We've got HD aerial broadcast in Canada (and the US). Adapt the technology for North American markets and it'll get huge sales.

OddyOh @ Apr 4th 2009 9:00AM

Hell yes! I don't have OTA HD in my area, but I'd use it to record Hockey Night in Canada on my PS3. :)

ClarkyCat @ Apr 3rd 2009 5:29PM

What am I waiting for? Ireland to get out of the dark ages of broadcast technology so my PlayTV will actually WORK!

whazam1337 @ Apr 3rd 2009 5:43PM

put this in USA please

lennygundam14 @ Apr 3rd 2009 5:42PM

well, at least we know why playTV doesnt Do HD yet, they want to do it, but they cant because no everyone has free HD through Digital Signal over there yet

sc00by_y00 @ Apr 3rd 2009 8:17PM

yeah, there was discussions earlier about whether it would even support the HD standard now we know it definitely supports it. Cool :)

Darren @ Apr 3rd 2009 6:06PM

Please bring this to the States! I'll promise I'll buy a PSP if you do!

Faar @ Apr 5th 2009 1:40PM

Unfortunately, north america uses a different format for ground-transmitted HD signals, so the PlayTV hardware would need to be redesigned from the ground up. As PlayTV is a native Sony Europe (SCEE) invention, I don't know how likely that is to happen...

Anyway, you americans do lose out on a pretty nifty invention. The ability to record while gaming is way, way cool and shows just how powerful the PS3 actually is. It plays beautiful games while transcoding and saving full-motion video to harddrive at the same time.

If only we could set a weekly rolling recording schedule as well, or even show live TV images in a PiP while gaming, that'd be even sweeter. Oh, and as mentioned before, the startup time is TOOOOO LOOOONG. :( It really should load much faster.

Khaled @ Apr 3rd 2009 6:21PM

I want this is the US so bad!

Yingerman @ Apr 3rd 2009 6:24PM

What do I want from PlayTV? I WANT TO BE ABLE TO BUY IT! Ship it across seas already!

btw, no hard feeling. :P

skyzbig @ Apr 3rd 2009 6:34PM

That can't bring it to the US because of different standards and transmission methods from state to state apparently.

Kinsey @ Apr 3rd 2009 6:45PM

WHY DO WE NOT HAVE THIS!?!?!?!?!

RICKDOEZ @ Apr 3rd 2009 7:01PM

all i want is on my xmb is in game cross chat party system!! shine sony shine!!

MaliceMajorE15 @ Apr 3rd 2009 7:17PM

ive been on eurogamer all day when they annouced it early this morning. i know it isnt live. so .......why lie?

sc00by_y00 @ Apr 5th 2009 10:23AM

You got it yet ? Ive been checking since the anouncement no update yet.. When is this meant to go live ??

Enedok @ Apr 4th 2009 7:41AM

Please bring out a play-tv box that can read license cards from my cable tv company. Some sort of a slot to read large sim cards.

Heck, please bring this to norway, we support the DVB-T signals!

stargateheaven @ Apr 3rd 2009 8:35PM

Other countries do not have it because of the way we recieve digital TV..
It's free for us, we don't have to pay.. !

RAV Designs @ Apr 3rd 2009 9:41PM

I'm not sure what you have heard, but all the major television broadcasters in the US are now sending out a digital SD/HD signal. We just have no good way to "DVR" it without building an HTPC, paying for TIVO, or getting raped by the local cable monopoly. I'd *much* rather have a PlayTV and I know I'm not the only one.

C'mon Sony give us what we want!

DKiller79 @ Apr 3rd 2009 8:21PM

I wish SONY would bring it out to the USA and have it in HD

required @ Apr 3rd 2009 9:04PM

I want this in the US as well.

Malascythe @ Apr 3rd 2009 9:13PM

Pores or Porn? Kinda stumbled there, buddy.

MortUK @ Apr 3rd 2009 9:36PM

Still no "Series Link"..?? which is what we really need.

Daniel @ Apr 3rd 2009 10:55PM

Still waiting for PlayTV here in NZ, when it was the SCENZ boss that slipped this one out in the first place! Apparently, PlayTV definately can't do HD recording, and three of New Zealands primary channels are in HD or upscaled. There is definately interest here, and I would love to get this box. It was recently announced TiVo would be released here by the end of the year... so they better be quick!

Echnaton @ Apr 4th 2009 2:56AM

Cool, I love PlayTV - one of the reasons why I bought a second ps3 for my bedroom ;-)

Indefinite Implosion @ Apr 4th 2009 12:36AM

I want this in Australia!
unfortunately our DTV standards aren't set yet I believe :(

alphavi @ Apr 4th 2009 4:11AM

I also want this in Australia. What's with the delays? I'm just about to give up and buy a HDD recorder.

dgknight500 @ Apr 4th 2009 3:10AM

Euro gamers keep complaining about a crappy PSN store, but I would kill for this! Lucky bastards....

purelegend @ Apr 4th 2009 8:39AM

The update still isn't out here in the UK. Why say it's available if it isn't?

Steffan Griffiths @ Apr 4th 2009 11:08AM

It's still not released. WTF, joystq, and WTF SCEE.

375861 @ Apr 4th 2009 12:29PM

Not sure HD will be supported in the UK, it will in France and other countries but the UK will be using DVB-T2, different from any other country.

Faar @ Apr 5th 2009 2:44PM

If your country uses the appropriate HD standard you can just buy the PlayTV device from somewhere else (by using the internet for example :)), plug it into your PS3 and go.

I bought my PlayTV in Paris, and I'm not French, yet it works fine where I live. :)

Kyozaki @ Apr 11th 2009 5:19AM

It's pretty good. But if you have Sky+ it's not worth getting. Sky plus is much better IMO but then again play tv is doesn't need a subscription. Its a great piece of kit to have and I would strongly recommend you buying one if ur in europe. My only gripe with is there is no option to re-encode :| file sizes are huge and unless you upgrade ur PS3 harddrive (like I have done) its not practical for < 80gb systems.

For example a 40min show takes up roughly 1gb and the largest recording I have so far is "Once Upon a Time in America" (which is nearly a four hour film) which takes up 4.7 gigs on my system alone. I would love to see an update which offers an option to re-encode. That said tho, the quality superb, but its a little bit overkill right now imo.

K'+