PlayTV hands-on: Turn your PS3 into a PVR

By Guy Cocker on 08 May 2008, 4:58pm

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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.