PS3 Play Tv - Watch, Pause and Record Digital TV !!!!

Set-up is a breeze and having run through the software installation (we were using a debug review code PS3) a quick scan picked up all the Freeview channels. The first thing that you’ll notice is that the quality of the user interface is absolutely spectacular. If Sony has done one thing, it has set a standard for on-screen menus with PlayTV. Aside from the quality, the menus are intuitive and lightening fast to navigate. Once the EPG is populated you can browse around it at great speed, much faster than many TV menus, and leagues ahead of our standalone Freeview tuner. We like the speed, the way menus spring up and the timeline running through the EPG, so you know where you are. Also, recording/scheduled programmes appear in red, so you can’t miss them.

With twin tuners, PlayTV can record one channel whilst watching another,You can either browse the EPG and select programmes to record, setting up a schedule, or jump into recording from the channel you are recording.

Scheduled recording will wake the PS3 from standby. You also get the normal pause live TV functions and you can opt to have a buffer to rewind live TV if you wish. You also are not restricted to watching TV whilst recording. You can still play games whilst recording in the background. This does come with the warning that it might cause a drop in performance, but nothing that we noticed.

Playback of recorded programmes is simply a case of entering the Library in the main menu and here PlayTV has another ace up its sleeve in the form of thumbnail view as well as a normal list view. This means you can skip over your recorded programmes to find what you want and it is exceptionally well delivered. You can then watch your programme, or move a recording out to your home menu, i.e., on the XMB.

Sony's Playstation 3 is a multimedia powerhouse, juggling the playback demands of Blu-ray, DVD and DivX with ease. But while on-demand content is growing in popularity, there remain a vast number of people who watch regularly scheduled, over-the-air broadcasts. So it's not surprising to see Sony enter the market with PlayTV, a new £89.49 device that will let you watch and record digital TV on your PlayStation 3.

PlayTV will allow users to play, record and stream free-to-air digital programming. All models of the PlayStation 3 are compatible with PlayTV, although the more hard drive space you have, the more you'll be able to record. Whatever size hard drive you have, 6GB of space will be reserved exclusively for game-related data. The PlayTV adaptor plugs into any free USB socket on the front of the PlayStation 3.

The unit itself isn't as small as some PC-based models and, instead, takes up about the same space as an original Nintendo DS. It does contain two separate tuners, however, so you can watch and record different channels. Also, it doesn't require an external power source. While you can control PlayTV with a Dualshock 3 or Sixaxis controller, a more traditional remote control is useful if you want to navigate Freeview's many channels at speed.

The PlayTV package includes the PlayTV USB tuner and a disc that installs new software on your PlayStation 3 hard drive. The installation adds a 'TV' icon to the PlayStation 3's XrossMediaBar (XMB), and selecting it allows you to jump straight into the PlayTV software. Assuming you've connected an aerial antenna and you're in a digital area (UK users can check on Freeview's site for availability), automatic tuning of the channels takes about five minutes. From there, you're ready to watch some TV!

The interface for PlayTV is pretty slick, sporting the same colourful menus and rounded icons of the main PlayStation 3 XMB menu. You can navigate the menu system using either a DualShock3 or Sixaxis controller, and Sony claims that it has made the controls as simple as possible for people who don't have a Blu-ray remote. While changing channels and pausing playback is simple enough, you have to use an onscreen remote if you want to input channel numbers or text pages. There are seven icons on the main menu, with the default option being 'Live TV'.

PlayTV's guide pulls scheduling information straight from the airwaves, which includes programme title and schedule times. It also includes a short blurb about the show and its stars. The guide holds information for all channels up to seven days into the future, allowing you to record anything that's listed during the week ahead.

Unlike some recording systems, such as Sky+, PlayTV doesn't include a series-link function that can record every episode of your favourite series automatically. However, if there's something on at a regular time, you can set daily or weekly repeat functions for each of your recordings.

PlayTV allows you to record both video and audio from digital TV and radio. The MPEG-2 stream for video is stored in its original form, so there's no degradation in video or audio quality between the live broadcast and the recording. Controversially, there's no copy protection encrypted on to the recording, so you're free to back up anything you record to another device for storage. Likewise, audio is recorded in the MP3 format and can be moved around at will, including to a PSP or an MP3 player. PlayTV helpfully adds tag information to the MP3 files for this very purpose, so you can see what you're listening to on any device that supports MP3 tagging.

Recording sizes differ depending on the quality of the original broadcast. In the UK, BBC channels typically take up the highest bandwidth and, therefore, use more space on the hard drive once stored. Lower bit-rate channels, such as Dave, take up less room once stored. There are no options to downgrade the quality of stored recordings because the original broadcast data is stored on the hard drive.

If you have special recordings that you want to watch outside of the PlayTV software, then you can export the files directly to the PS3 XMB. This allows you to watch them using the built-in media player, although once exported, these files disappear from the PlayTV menu.

Some of the best PlayTV features are available to PSP owners. Every feature of PlayTV can also be accessed via remote play on a PSP, which means that you can watch TV, schedule recordings, and play stored programmes from wherever you are in the world. The PlayStation Portable can connect over a local Wi-Fi connection to the host PlayStation3 or remotely via another Wi-Fi network. The only catch is that you must leave the PlayStation 3 on standby and have it connected to the Internet.

The menu system for PlayTV is as user-friendly and robust as we've come to expect from Sony. The interface boasts far more polish than most other Freeview equipment we've seen, while its PSP functionality will no doubt make it a must-have for frequent travellers. Displayed on a large widescreen TV, DVB performance can sometimes leave a little to be desired, with MPEG artefacts being a common occurrence on some channels. This is a problem facing all digital programming due to compression, however, and PlayTV is certainly no worse than anything else we've seen.

In terms of high definition, PlayTV does support the HD AVC streams that are currently being tested in Europe. According to Bunting, HD content from the BBC looks fantastic, and it will definitely be supported when the corporation makes it more commonplace.