Comments on: Sony PlayTV Integrated Digital TV and PS3 ABC iView Integration (Review)

By: Andrew Blanda

Andrew Blanda — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 09:31:54 +0000

Rabi, this is not intended as a Tech support forum. My recommendation is to visit the “Play TV” thread on Whirlpool: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1338535&p=54 (if the link does not work, visit http://whirlpool.net.au and visit the Gaming -> PS3 forums)

By: Rabi

Rabi — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:06:34 +0000

I bought ps3 and play tv today. I live in regional area. To my surprise, I couldn’t get any SD channels through Play tv. Any idea?

By: PlayTv Fan

PlayTv Fan — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:19:50 +0000

I don’t know what kind of super system I chanced upon then… because I did have an antenna splitter so I could switch to watching tv on my tv in case I had one thing recording and one thing on pause through the ps3 (which is more often than you’d think ) but the signal wasn’t great and I got tired of missing dialogue so I decided to take the splitter away to reduce any interference and just plug the antenna into the playtv device. To my astonishment I could still watch tv thru the tv no differently to when I had the splitter on. And now I don’t miss dialogue! Weird but cool

By: Leigh__Evans

Leigh__Evans — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:50:09 +0000

Yep nice review. i received one on request for an xmas present. my only gripes so far are that you have to quit from the play TV application to go back to the XMB to be able to do other tasks. It also means the PS3 has to be ‘always on’ for TV. It also means you cannot watch TV just through the normal tuner on your tv as the aerial is now plugged in through the play tv device and not directly into your tv.

maybe an aerial splitter might do the trick to allow both? i think that would be good in order to preserve the components (fan, HDD, etc) inside the ps3 from having to work for hours on end if you are watching/recording TV.

Im presuming there will be a firmware update/s in the future to bring in/fix up features – eg. record 2 shows at once without stuttering. My sister nearly bought one recently, but then opted for the beyonwiz as she needs to record 2 shows at once and couldnt find any definite news on the play tV being upgraded for this in the future. let me know if anyone finds that out for sure!

cheers, great device!

EDITOR: yes an antenna splitter costing a few dollars will do the trick. The Play TV hardware can only record 1 tuner and play 1 tuner at once.

By: Tony Hollingsworth

Tony Hollingsworth — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:13:45 +0000

I agree Wolf, it was not obvious to me either during my testing. Although I would say it was fairly straightforward to join the PlayStation Network (PSN) by selecting the menu options on PS3. It does seem unnecessary for iView per se, but I guess that was the deal done between Sony and the ABC – after all there are other benefits to being a member of PSN (see http://au.playstation.com/psn/) and Sony understandly want people to join and explore their network.

By: Wolfcat

Wolfcat — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:28:25 +0000

Well I finally bit the bullet and got my self the PS3 250 with play tv bundle…. well when it was in stock post xmas that was… seems this is a popular little toy…

And I did not buy it as a games machine but as a PVR/Media Centre and for Iview as well.

Must say it was annoying however that I had to go through the whole processes of setting up a Playstation network ID just to access Iview. (only after googling for it that is).
The machine new it was in Australia already so why did I need to get a PlayStation network ID. Just seems a little tedious to me.