PlayTV for Playstation 3...I smell a scam... or possibly scamola!

CoJoeTheLawyer

So my wife has been looking for a new way to record TV shows ever since our VCR went belly up in November and she's found a "device" online that claims to be able to record live TV onto your Playstation 3 hard drive. The website can be found here (http://www.playtv.me/

Now I am highly skeptical for the following reasons

1. I have never heard of this product, and I pay close attention to gaming/console news;

2. It was my understanding that only the Playstations in Europe would be given TiVo-like capabilities, and even that wasn't a given.

3. It's not for sale in the U.S.

So it this PlayTV thing legitimate, or is she barking up the wrong tree? If someone out there actually has it installed, how does it work? Any drawbacks? And it is possible (outside of a complete illegal modification) to get recording capabilities onto a PS3?

matt has a problem

It seems legit, but like it wouldn't be compatible in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayTV

:edit: Also, it's a Sony-manufactured product, so I think the playtv.me site is actually a scam site.

:second edit: Yep, that's a scam site, here's the actual site - http://playtvps3.com/

Infidel

It's legit but what their site doesn't mention is that it's a DVB-T tuner. Yeah, most people won't know or care what that means so I don't blame them, "HD ready" is much easier to understand, but DVB-T means you're out of luck for North America.

Grislo

http://www.playtvps3.com/ is the website for it, I believe.

BlindZenDriver

CoJoeTheLawyer wrote: »

So it this PlayTV thing legitimate, or is she barking up the wrong tree? If someone out there actually has it installed, how does it work? Any drawbacks? And it is possible (outside of a complete illegal modification) to get recording capabilities onto a PS3?

AS far as I know PlayTV is only out in the UK but from what I've read it is not a bad product - except as also mentioned elsewhere it's only for DVB-T signals (That's digital TV signals send through land based aerials as opposed to cable and sattelite).

As for using the PS3 to record TV I would think it's possible if you install Linux on it and get one of those TV USB sticks. Installing Linux is supported, somewhat, by Sony and it does not stop it from being a gaming console however I think you're better of getting a Hard drive recorder (else you can't game while recording).

Ponge

There was a small article on it in Empire magazine last month and it said it was 'freeview' only, which in the UK means that you only get a small selection of (mostly rubbish) channels that it can record from, even if you plugged it into a Sky or Cable box or whatever reciever you use.

ElJeffe

On a related note, do you have cable or satellite service, or are you just running an antenna? DVR service usually ads like $5-10/mo to your cost, which is pretty affordable, and is a whole lot nicer than a VCR.

LewieP

The PlayTV is a really good product actually, I set my parents up with it, and replaced the PS3 hard drive with a 320gb one, and they love it. If it ever does come out in a USA compatible format, I'd recommend it.

Improvolone

ElJeffe wrote: »

On a related note, do you have cable or satellite service, or are you just running an antenna? DVR service usually ads like $5-10/mo to your cost, which is pretty affordable, and is a whole lot nicer than a VCR.

Everywhereasign

Depending on how much work you want to do, once you get over the initial setup MythTV is fantastic. It's also free if you have a crap computer sitting around unused.