PlayTV Gets Even Better With 1.21 Update

@ James Thorpe

Dear James,

I know that PlayTV is not officially lunched in Scandinavia, but thanks to the easy import and it is a great product their are many scandinavians that have imported it.

But as it stands now there seems to be a problem by showing channels that has been encoded with MPEG4. We are many that are curious if you are aware of this problem?

Apparently PlayTV can easily record the shows since you can transfer them to your PC and play them from there.

We are many that hope that you look into this.

Best regards

Hi James,

Can you please confirm if PlayTv in the UK will get a new box which can decode DVB -T2.

HD picture is better when you get the multi channel output.

I look forward in reading your reply.

Prenax.

I have playtv, but this update came out at least a week ago now. Abit slow with the blog .

Its abit stupid really offering Hi Def freeview when we cant even view hi def channels in the uk yet. We probably wont see Freeview HD free until atleast 2011 or even longer. So pointless to advertise it imo.

Hi James,

I would appreciate if you can confirm if PS3 will get a new playtv Box in the UK.

And also, I was wondering if you knew when the god of war collection for the ps3 will be hitting the uk.

The Americans will be getting it this month. UK always gets left behind.

Thanks.

Prenax.

Nice update! Any chance of a future update integrating internet TV with custom urls for PlayTV?

Who loves god of war??

I love god of war.

I bet you guys too.

Hahahaha

Add me to the list of people who wants recordings to be a little less strain on the hard drive.

It’s like 2GB for the average movie. Luckily I have a 320 GB hard drive but before that it was a nightmare when it came to recordings AND installs from games when I was stuck with a 60GB.

So, the question everyone in the UK wants to know the answer to – are Sony developing a PlayTV HD box which will decode DVB-T2? Ideally it needs to be one of the first launch devices or else I will be choosing another model which is a shame as I love my PS3 and SD PlayTV.

This question has been asked so many times and never been answered. When is the DVB-C support coming up??????

Love the product guys but one simple suggestion is can you atleast let us download whilst we on the product! Love it nonetheless.

@ic1male2

It’s nice that we can use the PS3 for all these different things, and the processing power it has could be used well for recording and playback of TV footage, but at the wattage used, and the fact that no mention of DVB-T2 on the cards from Sony right now, really puts me off buying a PlayTV.

I have V+ and I have one of the new Virgin boxes from Samsung, not that old clunky thing when V+ first came out, and it records superbly for both SD and HD channels. Depends on the channel as well as to how much HDD is used up for HD. Record from Geo HD and it may use 3-6hrs, but the BBC HD channel used closer to 6-10hrs with the one 1hr program I recorded the other night.

Overall though, with the ability to record 2 channels and watch a third, I think the PlayTV is severel lacking in features and functionality, and unless it has Dual HD Tuners with the ability to watch a third channel and DVB-T2, I won’t be utilising PlayTV which is a real shame.

The one thing that really ticks me off though, is what happens with all those HD TV’s out there that only run DVB-T???

French playtv users, in the french section of this blog have confirmed the same problem of pixelation when you switch to a HD channel that I have reported in my last post. Then, it means this is a general bug. Please inform the developers team. Thankyou.

just like Kopfschuss1 I was wondering… Will this come to the Netherlands?

They advertise with it on the dutch playstation site but will they ever going to launch it here?

please James Thorpe Give me some hope because I just know people here in the Netherlands wil want to use this bad

Hi,

My suggestions

* Surf the internet whilst watching the tv (especially as news services such teletex will cease shortly). We need something to do whilst the ads are on.

* transcode tv programs so you can transfer to psp (without having to do this on my oc) so I can watch them on the train.

* remote play for other platforms (e.g. iphone etc).

Hi James

Just a few words from Denmark.
As mentioned by other great Danes in this thread, the PlayTV obviously have a MPEG4 problem, or the the Danish national Broadcasting has a problem in the stream configuration.

Danish PS3 fanboys had been looking forward to the upgrade to mpeg4, because we got several new mpeg4 TV channels november 1′st.

We were looking at New Zealand, cause they seemed to have the same setup. MPEG4 AVC HIGH@L4.0 with HE-AAC sound.
So when they reported a great success after the release of version 1.21, we were really ramping up for a great experience november 1′st.

We know that PlayTV is not launched in Denmark, but the dissapointment was big, when we found out that MPEG4 AVC HIGH@L4.0 with HE-AAC sound was not the same as MPEG4 AVC HIGH@L4.0 with HE-AAC sound on the southern hemisphere…

The recordings look great, but only when exported to a PC. Not on the PS3.

So to end these few words:
Keep up the good work, but don’t let us wait for months for an update…

Best regards
Choebro

NZ delayed again! Any ideas when we get PlayTV sony?

In downloaded this last week and it was working fine till my PS3 threw a wobbly! 9 hours later after a full format, I reinstalled PlayTV and it is working fine again.

Recording is fine, but it is a oain to have to export a recording to the dash, then copy it to a USB drive. Perhaps the next version will have an export function?

A user asked about HD in Ireland, well…. We don’t officially have a DTT service yet, we are still in the testing phase, so it is anyones guess if we will ever see HD DTT. For more info, or to keep up to date, check out boards.ie

Thanks to the Sony Team for this update, it finally makes the PlayTV what I had hoped it would.

Now then… any chance that someone could introduce samba file file sharing to the OS????

ja godt gået drenge

any plans for portugal?

holland’s free tv sucks!
so we pay for it…

Thank you so very much for finally getting PlayTV into Australia. I know I’ll be picking it up on day one. I cannot wait.

Hi James,

Great news for the patch, glad to hear PlayTV development hasn’t been put away for good!

The absolute biggest issue/feature request I have with PlayTV is part of the “Export to Home Screen” function. Can PlayTV please give the option to split recordings into 4GB file sizes? Without this, we’re stuck and cannot copy large files onto an external HD (PS3 only supports FAT32 structure).

I guess the only other workaround would be if Sony allowed XMB to support writing to another file system. Not sure if NTFS would be allowed (or even Apple’s HFS file system??), but surely there’s a better way?

Thanks for the great product, and hope you can consider this request

Cheers,
Vaughan

It would be nice to use play tv directly form xmb, for example a channel would appear as a video on xmb with options to record it…Getting inside the application would only be necessary to edit videos…
-MHP interactive tdt support for spain
-record 2 programs at a time
-PIP function, full secreen channel with small window with another one, that windows sholud be allowed to be moved anywere in screen.
-More options to set times to record, take for example the possibilities that google calendar offers.

@ snoozy355 My understanding is that Australian PlayTV will not allow any exporting to the XMB if the region selected is Australia due to our freeview having certain stipulations if you want to be compliant.

So don’t Worry about the “Export to Home Screen” function.

Also missing 1 minute skip and FFx120

Though I am Willing to be corrected…

Qoutheraven02,

Thanks for your reply. I’m not making my point from the Australian implementation of the product. Frankly, the Freeview consortium in Australia is a joke, and has washed consumers with FUD regarding what does and doesn’t work. Freeview compliance is something that strips rights and control from the users – never a good thing.

My request was simply an addition to the Export function, which probably should have been there from launch. Oh well, I can still cross my fingers.

Cheers,
Vaughan

snoozy355 No problems mate I to would like to See that as some “saved” Shows are going to be over 4GB limit… Bathurst lol

I’m Sure there is a Work Around For us

The only workaround right now is to stop and start the recording manually every 30 minutes or so (in an ad-break or something). Then export those chunks to XMB.

As for the Export function not on Au menus, you need to change your PlayTV country setting to “Other” when you want to export, then flip back to Au when you’re done.

Thanks for the update James, in the Australian version, it now correctly picks up the channel number and generally works brilliantly, but if I try to go directly to a channel by entering the channel number on the blu-ray remote, only some channels work.

IIRC, I can go to channel 10 by entering 10, or 010, but I can’t go directly to Channel 7, or Seven HD by entering 7, 07, 007, 70, or 070.

Is this a little bug, or am I doing something wrong?

Hi James !!

First of all, THANK YOU for this update!! In France we were looking for it since months as you propbably know…
We finally get the sound on HD channels!! Great!

A few questions about this update:
Question 1 :I just noticed that when you record a HD channel and you move the file into the XMB, the PS3 doesn’t want to read it anymore (corrupted file). Do you have an idea of what’s happening?

Question 2 : Why are there some squares everywhere for a few seconds when you move to a HD channel? Moreover, when I watch a recorded HD channel and when I move forward in the file, the squares are not in the same place. Anywhere on the file, when I press play, squares appears everywhere for a few seconds (sometimes 30s). I mean these squares doesn’t seem to be a channel signal problem, but a software problem? Any answer?

But thank again for this great update for France!

Oh and Final question:

For the next update, it would be great to have the opportunity to sort channels the way we want!
I mean the HD channels are at the end of the list and we would like to replace the SD channels by the HD one. Sounds like you have BBC1 and BBC2 in HD at the end of the list (after some pay TV channels)…
It would be also great to remove channels we don’t want!

France LOVE Play TV (after the 1.21 update…;-) )

First off thanks for all the hard work you put into PlayTV it’s great.

Do you think we’ll ever have the abilty to record two channels simultaneously if we’re not watching TV? It would be great for when I’m out and there’s two programs I want to record on at the same time.

Thanks.

I’m In Denmark and have the same problems that others have said here. Such a shame as I was excited to finally get more than 3 channels after 1st November when Denmark went Terestrial Digital. SD and HD channels MPEG 4 are jerky and blocky. MPEG 2 Channels are perfect though. Maybe a small bug fix release? Or could it be a PS3 firmware issue?? I have wondered as the files are ok when played on a PC, so maybe the tuner is working fine?, its just Playback from PS3 is the problem, maybe?

Good day James and the development team, I would like to give a big thanks to you all for the fantastic update well done guys, PlayTV is now a very polished product. It is nice to now have all channels with audio and full record here in New Zealand. I can see once PlayTV is released here it will be a major seller.
As you know the only remainder issue for us is the EIT EPG is not fully populating as FreeviewHD NZ use (the horrible) MHEG-5 EPG.
I have found one small bug, if you export anything that is in AAC/AAC+ from the library to the XMB audio is lost, AC3 is fine, just thought I would pass that on.
Again thanks for the great product and we all look forward to future updates.

Does this work in Nroway?

Hi Sony team!

Awesome work on PlayTV. I’m in New Zealand and now that all channels are working I’m importing my unit from the UK. It should be here next week.

Seeing the only issue here is the EPG, why don’t you just release it before xmas anyway and sort that out with a future firmware update?

Please can you fix the bravia sync issues in play tv.
1. If you turn off the TV with the remote Play TV stops the PS3 turning off over the Bravia sync. This means you have to manually exit playtv first which…..
2. you cannot exit play tv with a sony tv remote over bravia sync because there is no way of getting to the exit icon!! This means you then have to turn on the PS3 controller just to exit. All the other features in playtv are scrollable with the tv remote!!
3. As per everybody else, series link and 14 day programme please

4. Choosing a destination to record to is surely a must. As our primary purpose for the playstation is a mediacentre the missus records lots of telly. 120gb will be OK for a while but would prefer to record to a NAS disk to keep the PS3 tidy!

5. Recording two channels. Obviously it is capable as you can set it to record one channel then pause another whilst it is recording. Why not go the whole hog and allow us to set 2 recordings at the same time.

i think PlayTV is a good idea but we need more channels like sky 1 sky 2 jetix and more films and kids and enternment channels. my idea is make a store in playTV so you can buy the channels that you want and watch it for free for life that i think its a good idea.

and another idea i have for PlayTV when use make another update for playstation 3 can use try and make PlayTV go as wirelless than having to use an 1 of those digtal aral to pick up channels so that you can plug in the PlayTV up to the PS3 and watch it through wireless boardband internet if you know what i mean. rebly back please

Hi

I have a PS3 with PlayTV and a 500 gb harddrive with 10-20 pages of recordings. Cleaning up all this recordings is a time consuming work since the “cursor” returns to top everytime i delete a recording.
Life would be very much easier if the “cursor” would stay at the next recording when deleting a recording.
Grouping the recordings would be a nice thing also…
And of course the series thing would be fantastic…

Works great in Norway now (mpeg-4)! The Norwegian national broadcaster “NRK” transmits all its channels without scrambling. (my playtv has been collecting dust since I bought it in Germany in September -08, glad I never got to sell it on ebay.de)

I dont get why Sony cant see the massive potential in a Play Tv box, that have these abilitys:
DVB-TV 1-2
MPEG4 Tuner
Slot for decoder card
The software platform is already in place and as such it cant be a big problem to make one or two different iterations of the box for the different areas of EU, then people can make up there own mind, to witch box they want to buy.
For my sake, i would give my right arm if the Play Tv box could do the things mention above.
Just sad that Sony dont see this potential… :0(

Hi like all the others love all the updates and having just bought the Aino, am lovin that tooo.

My question is I live in Spain and watch play tv Spain when an Engish film comes on the laungaue goes into English as its my prefered Laungauge in the profile menu.

However when I record an English film it will not allow me once recorded to liston to it in English Why…..

My wish list:

1) Sort/rearrange order of channels
2) Recording like in a classic VHS or tape recorder. Just press a button to start , just press a button to finish. (No EPG or programming: EPG is not reliable in Spain!!!)
3) MHP
4) PiP and PaP , it’s a dual tuner !!!
5) Support ShowView codes
6) Split files in 4GB parts , so you can export to FAT32
7) Basic editing of video, so you can remove some minutes you don’t want (Many PVR can do this)
8- Record both audio channels in dual broadcasts. Right now, only the active language is recorded
9) Fix audio HD recording.
10) Teletext subtitles, and not the ugly pictures DVB broadcasts
11) Teletext
12) Export to UDF formated USB external drives

I’ve got this PlayTV now 9 months and seen it getting better in every update.

Features I wish to see in PlayTV:

• Option to disable information pop up that comes when recording of scheduled TV program starts and stops (this comes for example while watching Blu-Ray, DVD, TV) I really do not need that information then.
• Record two channels at the same time
• Option to see TV channels signal strenght
• Manual search for TV channels
• Option to see that in whitch UHF channel found TV channel is
• It is annoying that subtitles do not stay unless they are “burned in the screen” when recordings are moved to XMB
• Option to only copy not move recordings to XMB
• 60 x fast forward / rewind
• Basic editing recorded programs would be nice
• In library, option to start playing saved programs from the beginning
• PIP
• Option to save what is in live TV buffer

if you use the play-tv system, how can you burn video files into a large external device such as a hard disk or a pendrive? since the ps3 is not able to write to ntfs or ext3.

sorry (my english is not well), if you use the play-tv system, how can you burn a large video files into external device such as a hard disk or a pendrive? the ps3 can not write to ntfs or ext3.

Mark, I personally think Play TV is fantastic, i use it everyday on the HDTV in my bedroom & it looks really good, a few things i would like to see in future updates would be

1) SERIES LINK!!!!!, could you not even give us a rough idea if/when this is coming i.e Q2 2010.
2) 2 recordings at once, either with the existing hardware or support for a second Play TV box.
3) whilst we are on the subject of the Play TV box I would suggest the new version be compatible with the DVB-T2 standard & have RF in AND out!!!! along with a USB port replicator
4) remote recording, i.e if i forget to set the recorder for a tv show i could access the program guide via a PC & send a message to my PS3 at home to record it. SKY have this function & it is brilliant!!!

I look forward to your response

Cheers

Chris

Good news from Norway. I have tested PlayTV for quite a while now, but until the update in April, there wasn’t much to see. I have therefore been following the development in New Zealand, as we seem to have the same DVB-T standard (H.264/Mpeg-4 AVC). After April I had picture, but no sound, but with the 1.21 I now have both picture AND sound. Just after the update, there was a problem with the sound on the recording, but when I checked yesterday, I had playback with sound! That means that PlayTV is now (almost) fully functional in Norway.

The only problem I have now is that the clock is an hour off, but as long as the clock and the program guide are in sync (and they are), it’s not really a problem.

Please note that PlayTV is not sold or marketed in Norway – I ordered mine from Amazon.co.uk. As PlayTV only supports Free to air, that means you can only watch NRK1, NRK2 and NKR3/Super.

I love using PLAY TV on my PS3, I’ve been recording programs and using the lovely “Export To Home Menu” feature which works like a treat but it would be great if the thumbnails in the home menu worked like standard video files with the preview clips?