PlayTV for the PS3

The release of Sony's PlayTV has indeed made waves in technological and entertainment world. Sony has always been an innovator in providing ways to maximize the high-end capabilities of the PlayStation 3 as a multimedia hub. In its basic form, the PlayTV works as either a TV Tuner and a personal video recorder for you to watch any of your favorite shows whenever and wherever.

Utilizing the twin channel peripheral of the TV tuner along with the PlayTV software, this makes PlayTV a high-end TV recorder. Indeed, one of the best features of the PlayTV is its capacity to enable users to watch TV either remotely or right in their living room set.

Probably one of the slickest feature of the PlayTV is that you can pause live TV. To do this, you simply press the Start button as you would when playing a game. Then, hit the screen pauses when you need to do something such as go to the bathroom or answer a call. When you're through with that, you can hit Start again to resume with your viewing so you did not miss anything.

However, the length of time you are allowed to pause a live broadcast is limited to the space in your hard drive. The live broadcast is cached into the hard drive while you are paused, enabling you to watch what you might have missed on traditional broadcast system. You will need around 2GB to store an entire film of broadcast, or 0.5GB for a 30 minute TV show.

Meanwhile, you can also record your favorite TV shows as they go on live. This is not only efficient to view your favorite shows over and over but is perfect when you have appointments that coincide with your favorite program's telecast schedule. Whenever you want to record a show, simply press Select button.

For the recording feature, there are more options to ensure that you won't miss any of your favorite show's episode. By checking on the show tv listings, you are able to set in advance recordings on your PS3 for any show.

On the other hand, if you have a specific program in mind that you want to record, you can do a quick and extensive search and list all the telecast schedule for shows related to the search. Once you have recorded the show, you can watch it later at any time most convenient to you, whether at home or remotely through your PSP.

Another powerful feature in the PlayTV package is that it is equipped with two receivers. Hence, it is possible to record while watching live TV, all done simultaneously. This feature also enables you to pause a live TV broadcast, or for you to watch previously recorded programmes while you are recording.

Unlike any other video recorders, the PlayTV supports PSP remote play. With this astonishing feature, users are able to control the PlayTV device and watch TV wherever there's a WiFi connection. The catch though is that you need to keep your PS3 turned on and connected to the Internet for you to access these live TV broadcasts or recordings in your PSP while away from home.

Despite the advanced features offered by PlayTV, navigating your way through all these different features is not a daunting task. The controls are easy to comprehend and the button help features are quite efficient. There are also several available tutorials and navigation videos to learn more about how you can maximize the use of your PlayTV device.

Plus, knowing that it is HD-ready, you can expect to get the most out of your viewing pleasure. As PlayTV will continute to evolve and infuse more functional features, it will definitely change the way people think of set top boxes and will extend the use of the PSP to more than just a gaming console.