Sony details PS3 DVR pricing, launch date
PlayTV incoming
Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation 3’s PlayTV digital video recorder (DVR) add-on will be available in four months' time.
Last month, a sales page for the product appeared on Amazon UK. It stated PlayTV would be available from the end of July for £70.
Sony swiftly dismissed Amazon’s details as “erroneous and speculative”. It told Register Hardware that pricing and availability for PlayTV would be announced “very soon”.
Sony's PlayTV: coming in September
Well, now it has done so. Sony has confirmed that PlayTV will ship to Europe in September for €100 (£80/$160).
PlayTV has two tuners to pick-up DVB-T digital TV broadcasts in Europe. Users can watch one show while recording another, and pause live TV. Recorded content is stored on the PS3's own hard drive.
Recorded shows can be sent out across the internet to a PSP for viewing on the move, Sony said.
COMMENTS
@Alex Lane
It won't be done in silicon, dumbass, it will be done in software. As long as there are HD tuners, then everything else can be done in firmware.
DVB-T2 info, and Recording whilst playing.
Yep, does both..
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=282880
@ myself
Sort of answered my own questions... Here's the Sony press release, oh and it's operating on DVB-T.
http://www.scee.presscentre.com/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=4413
Saving content to external hard drive or network drive?
I wonder if you'll be able to specific an external USB storage drive. Or better still a network drive over the ethernet connection. That would be much easier than upgrading the internal hard drive for most folks. Plus it could allow playback from a network storage device to other devices in the house using content discovered using the DLNA protocol.
This could solve the growing problem with PVR/DVR that you can't access the content from a single source and view in multiple rooms.
@Mark re: DVB-T2
If this thing is coming out in September there's no chance it will be DVB-T2 compatible. The best estimates for DVB-T2 silicon are late 2009, with products in early 2010, and it will take more than a firmware upgrade. Just because it supports MPEG-4 AVC doesn't mean it will work with Freeview HD.
Sony's just chucked out a half-arsed TV tuner for an over-priced gaming platform, when they could have produced an HD-capable product for Freesat.
Paris must be on their product development team.
