PlayTV Update

What am I waiting for…. Australian release so at least some of my country men/women get money

Isa there any chance in the future of being able to sign up to ESPN, subscribing via the playstation store, or even having topup tv through the store aswell?

The update of PlayTv for sound on French HD channels…
When you want guys!!!

what im waiting for?

MULTIPLE DELETE! flag for delete, flag for move etc

I love my PlayTV but making room is on the hard drive is so painful still (

when does we iin sweden get play TV ?

What am I waiting for? Well I am waiting for a release date!

Yeah we really need a release date for Australia and New Zealand. It would be nice

What am I waiting for, a firmware update so we in Australia can receive SBS, the rest of our channels and ABC HD. Also waiting for a solid release date so I can tell all of my customers.

Congrats on the award! Its well deserved!

would be nice if an ETA was given when this will come to australia

-first. I agree with other users, please use only the word “update” when you update the software. let’s update it soon with new features long awaited by all the playtv users.

-second. I wrongly supposed that this was the european playstation blog, not the uk playstation blog. I don’t understand the reason why you insert a post with the “playtv update” tittle, only to remember uk users that they must rescan channels due to a technical change in the british broadcasting system, not only for the playtv users but for all set top boxes and tv’s in Uk.
Sincerely I can’t understand.

“So if you haven’t got your hands on the award winning gadget that lets you watch, pause and record digital TV through your PS3, what are you waiting for?!”

Um maybe because it isn’t available here in aus and there is no word on it coming any time soon in the near future?

The play tv thing was cool a couple of years ago when it was announced but now practicly everything has a tuner in it. I have so many I cant decide what to use.

Do I use my foxtel iq? or my tv? or what about my pc?

The free channels in Sweden suck anyway, but the SD upscale would be nice, since I have a 1080p LCD-tv. But Sweden won’t get this thing, will it?

I would love it if ESPN can be bought via playstation stoe or something. Would love to watch sports via my ps3 using play tv!!! PPLLLEAAASSEE sony….do something about this!!!! I dnt want to purchase another freeview box!!!

I got rather excited to see update and then it was another reminder to retune my freeview box

Anyway cheers and congrats on the award, well deserved great piece of kit.

Hey play tv is great i use it every day yes we do need updates for it and soon like when your in the tv guide it be nice to be able just see movies or tv shows etc to make them easyer to find 2 recordings at once aswell as series linking keep up the great work making the ps3 the best games consul ever made.

Hello,

Can vou give us a date for the update ?

In the league favorite, will it be possible to change the order of channels?
I really want to make my own rankings.

I’m sure the main reason why they haven’t already announced the current Play TV device won’t work with Freeview HD is because it won’t. Negative news like that would just kill current sales.

Even if they could somehow get the HD signal to the PS3 to decode it, I doubt you’d be able to play games whilst recording. Although having Freeview HD like this would be better than nothing.

It works in HD for Australia as Australia elected to rather than having loads of crap SD channels to have all their main channels ( 6 or so ) in HD also using DVB-T, hence though only they have about 20 different channels if that from what I can remember when I was last there.

Anyone who wants Play TV in there area that can’t get it and has DVB-T broadcasts avaiable, surely a certain auction site should supply their needs!

Roll on Play TV HD, hopefully in a software update, but I bet a new unit. I wanna see a new 1TB 2.5 inch PS3 capable drive soon too..

germany here, i love playtv and use it dayli since its release. But iam still waiting for:

a teletex
a way to programm play tv via internet (iphone app would be the best ;P)

also the digital program guide is NEVER displaying more than the “current and next” show in advance for some tv statitions in germany. (like prosieben etc.)

Can we except a update anytime?

I’m STILL WAITING for the firmware update that was “coming soon”* THREE MONTHS AGO. I have a 40-quid gadget that currently lets me watch _one_ NZ TV channel. Hardly one of my better buys.

What on earth is taking so long! Are you programming it with boxing gloves on? PlayTV was a great idea, but is taking so long to become fully functional its embarassing.

I have a daily ritual of doing a last-24hr google search for “playtv update” and was momentarily hopeful when I saw this post’s link. Instead its just another in the long line of disappointments that have become typical of PlayTV.

* – according to Mark “I seem to have dropped off the Internet” Bunting

Let’s remember to someone that only in Uk opted for DVB-T2 for HD channels and the majority of other countries opted for the same DVB-T for their HD channels. In this way for example here in Spain (in some areas) we can receive with the last firmware version, one free HD channel and playtv displays it perfectly, but as you Know with this firmware version we can not record it. Also our neightbourgs, in france can see their freeview HD channels with playtv but they don’t hear the audio cause they opted for dolby digital+ and the current software can’t manage it. As I said in my last post:

PLAYTV DEVELOPMENT TEAM OR SONY MANAGERS, DO YOUR JOB AND GIVE PLAYTV USERS WHAT YOU PROMISE!

Thanks for coming back with some answers James

“Thanks for coming back with some answers James”

haha … yeha …

PlayTV works in Sweden. Just buy it from England.
It shows svtHD.
Though it displays time settings int the EPG wrong, specially during summer time.

My money is burning a hole in my pocket! Please release PlayTV in New Zealand and Aussie ASAP!!

@57 FluxZero:
you should be able to get abc hd. i can get it fine. i havent tried recording it though. the only issue i have is sbs like all other australians. not a big deal atm though… till swift and shift comes back… but then again this unit is only in the bedroom anyway. i have my tivo in the lounge. a much more reliable, full featured product. i spose thats to be expected with a price tag like what it has

I’m afraid that at November 1st we can add Denmark to the list of countries that has free (HD) dvb-t channels without sound on PlayTV…I’m pretty sure they’ll only broadcast aac sound, so we are waiting eagerly for the 1.20 software.

PlayTV is by far the best dvb-t tuner/recorder I’ve ever used and with remote play it’s just too cool to be able to watch Danish TV everywhere in the world over WiFi.

Buying it from play.com works very well but when the new firmware arrives you should really consider launching it officially in Denmark.

Playtv is ok but i must comment on the playback, when i watch recorded programmes they stutter, jump and miss parts of the progamme, i am not impressed by this and cant seem to stop it. There is plenty of space on my hard drive 200+-.

Any ideas James???

+1 for waiting in AU…

I understand you guys need the big Sony bosses to give you the green light to spill the beans, and you keep reminding us of that… which is nice.

BUT, instead of bouncing back to us saying you can’t tell us anything, why not actually get the big bosses to understand that we need the info, end of October was promised by the AU big boss, and that’s getting close, some kind of confirmation either way would be appreciated!

How Sony treats customers outside of the United States = FAIL!

Eg. the new Slim PS3 is US$299. Now at the current exchange rate that equals ~AU$350.. Now i’m not so close-minded as to assume a simple exchange rate comparison justifies putting our price right down… but currently our price is set at $499.. valuing us at 60c in the US dollar.. whereas our current exchange is over 85c. I’d like to see an absolute max of $449, with $429 being totally acceptable and $399 enthusiastically a long shot.

I don’t care if the US is a bigger market.. You guys don’t even try to make it look like ya care about anyone else!

NOW.. I would like a PlayTV release before Xmas… just please do that for me. If it’s not going to be fully compatible with the new Freeview spec in Australia, then don’t bother. I don’t want a half-assed product and i’m sick of waiting for it. Sony ought to appreciate customer loyalty, not disrespect it.

Thankyou

Sony’s software abilities also leave a LOT to be desired. I mean how poor is the current XMB… its a user interfact nightmare.. take a leaf out of Apple’s book would yas. Whatever budget you guys dedicate to non-gaming stuff is obviously a pittance. The firmware could be SO MUCH MORE!

The only thing outside of games you guys have done right is the Folding@Home application which is something i run all the time.. but even that yous managed to partly ruin by putting it into a god awful program like ‘Life with PlayStation’.. i mean.. NO ONE uses it other than ‘folders’.. Theres nothing interesting about it.. No proper weather or news or anything.. its all SUBPAR!

Its really frustrating when your gunning for the PS3 to do well and ya get let down so much by stupid features/lack of features etc.

Yep, rather gutted that the “update” turned out to be anything but

PlayTV is excellent but is in bad need of a) more frequent news updates and communication with the users via this blog, and b) new firmware to fix the niggles and introduce features which should have been there from day 1.

Congrats on the award…. but I think they should have held onto it and said “you can have this award as soon as you introduce series link and make it Freeview+ certified”

Will you be introducing a new PlayTV HD box for the UK? If so, can us early adopters who pre-ordered before release date be allowed to part-exchange our old boxes?

Hopefully you will reply to this. I just wanted to add some thoughts to improvments to play TV. First can you add a weekday and weekend setting to it because if I set something to record which is on every day apart from the weekend then I can only individually set it to record or select the daily setting which means it will record on the weekend slots as well. Also can you take away the maxium 25 times to record or add an unlimited setting? plus can you make it scroll back to the beginning of the channel list when it gets to the last channel?scroll like one continuous scroll wheather you scroll up or down. Thanks, just some thoughts

Any news on when the firmware update to enable recordings of MPEG4 transmissions will be? Here in Ireland we can view and pause live tv fine but cant watch recordings made.

I have more bad news, since the rescan, i have just recently added Flashforward to my weekly planner. Last night it recoreded and when i went to watch it…i couldn’t…was stuck on pause, yet when i tried an old recording it worked fine and if i did a on the fly recording it also worked.

I have also noticed this has happened on a previous scheduled planning, i need help

Fr34kyUK, this is because Channel Five has now moved, but last week (for the first episode) it was recording Five in the old (then correct) location.

The saved schedule will still be trying to record it in the old location so you just need to delete it from the schedule and then re-add FlashForward as a weekly recording.

(Not a fault with PlayTV, as such… I suppose with hindsight they could add a few more lines of code to make it cope with this scenario, but it’s hardly a common one….)

paulfp, Thank you for the heads up, I hope that is the problem but i am sure there is something else…only reason i say this is that on sunday morning i sceduled it to record Nightrider on fiver, anyway settled down to watch it after missing the 1st episode and same problem

And this was scheduled after the rescan!

I’m with ‘onewa’ and others… we are really hanging out for PlayTV here in New Zealand. Personally, I have had to go back on medication! *just jokes*

When is the next firmware release due? Did someone say shortly? If so, how soon?

Hi,
I am in Bulgaria and I’ve imported the PlayTV from Italy.
It is working great here with the DVB-T signal.
There is only one problem – PlayTV internal clock is 54 minutes ahead.
The PS3 is synced with internet. The latest PlayTV update (1.10) is installed. But there is not way (or at least I was not able to find it) to sync the clocks.
I need help! Since the EPG is still not started here I can use only manual recording but calculating the time offset every time is a nightmare.
Any ideas?

Thank you in advance
Regards
Vlad

Re the EPG clocks, check the daylight savings option in the XMB settings. This can correct the time problems in some cases.

Whilst PlayTV does indeed work here in Ireland (using it to watch Irish DTT at the moment), the user still cannot use it as a PVR as the software has not been updated to allow this.

It surely can’t be a technical issue as one can pause live tv and return to it at a later stage. This obviously means that PlayTV can record an Mpeg4 stream.

Any thoughts on an update James??

I bought my PS3 barely a month ago here in the UK. Two days ago I borrowed a PlayTV from a friend having only read about PlayTV. It took me only an hour to be convinced that PlayTV was an excellent product and bought one today for GB£40.

I wanted to test was that it would work through a USB hub (come on Sony, please fitting the next PS3 revision with a rear USB socket or two!). I also discovered that PlayTV program will only run when the DVB-T adaptor is plugged in, and programs are not available through the XMB video playback section – please consider tighter integration there!

p.s. Given that the PS3 is a fairly well locked down device, is there any chance of implementing decryption in software so that we can use TopUP TV or other encrypted subscription TV service?

I’m looking forward to the DVB-T2 decoder or FreeSat, or both. Please consider offering existing customers a decent discount on this, especially those of us who tell you it’s a wonderful product (me! me! I’ll be a beta tester).

All this said, I hope Sony will continue to improve the product, I’d especially like it to make better use of the Bluray remote control rather than require us to think in terms of a game controller. I’d also like to be able to control the PS3 from a remote place, a bit like PSP stuff, so I can schedule a recording from work if I forget.

thanks.

Well, it’s time to ask my old question again:

Gents, do you plan to add support for USB-based SmartCard readers, so that scrambled channels can be decrypted and viewed?

cheers
Károly

I have got my playtv today by post from expansys. Al channels are been scanned but we know that kpn has allmost all channels behind a card. The free open channels works great here in the netherlands even stream to my PSP.

Hopefully sony can make a deal with KPN that will be great!!

greets marco from the netherlands….

Hello Karoly , i think they at sony made their statement it`s a free to air reciever and no smartcard based set is planned by sony.
I have the same problem here in the netherlands because the most signals are scrambled by a smartcard and only local channels i can recieve that are free to recieve. Thi is also the thing why sony pulled the play tv from the dutch PS3 website no advertisement on it any more.The only way to play as an early adapt user is to take the risk to import the playtv set and for so far on be happy if it works.
Here into the netherlands the only way for Sony to set ground is to start talking to KPN who owns the pack for dtv T.
The market here is to small they never will roll out this product her into the netherlands , but for so far i am happy with playtv…

greets marco

Hi team,

Any chance you can give an ETA on the next update to be released?
It’s been months!

Ta

I’d like to add my vote to being able to record two programs at the same time, although it does mean not being able to watch live. Could I plug in *two* PlayTV adaptors maybe? Perhaps when you do the DVB-T2 adaptor for Hi-def you could have an RF pass-through and built-in hub so as to daisy-chain modules?

Also, it’d be good when watching live to be able to record from the *start* of changing to the live stream, not just from the moment record is pressed (which is still a great feature BTW, I just want it even better!)

WILL THIS WORK IN IRELAND, IS THEIR ANYONE IN IRELAND USING THIS AND IF SO HOW GOOD IS IT?

Hi Marco,

It would only require a software change only, since there are USB-based SmartCard readers available for few euros. The cards are standardised (ISO7816) as well as the interface (PC/SC) and they can apply DRM for scrambled programmes, I would not mind. But without the ability to see all available programmes, PlayTV’s a geek toy only and not one of the central parts of my living room. Hope that Sony guys will realize it.

cheers
Károly

My problem with scheduling is sorted now