Various people have had a look at PlayTV recently. Expect the definitive hands-on from TechRadar soon, but for now, here's some observations from those in the know.
For a start, it's been confirmed by The Guardian that the PlayTV unit requires no independent power source – it works straight from your PS3 USB socket with no fuss and, booting in 30 seconds and, say Eurogamer, scanning all your channels in about 90 seconds.
The EPG is being described as "slick and responsive", appearing in the PS3's native HD even when your TV stream doesn't, with a clear timeline to indicate how far through a programme you've got, and a constant reminder of your remaining PS3 disk space as you record. Eurogamer reckon that 30 minutes of footage will set you back around 500MB, so a rousing cheer one again for the recently announced 160GB PS3.
While you can't record two programmes at once, says The Guardian, you can record one channel while watching another. However, you have to actually be running PlayTV to watch your recordings.
Remote viewing
Remote Play on the PSP apparently works quite well, though obviously depending on your wireless signal, with artefacting generally only a minor concern.
The Guardian and Gamespot both report that the much-vaunted video transfer to PSP, however, didn't work as smoothly as planned, being impossible to achieve at this stage of testing unless pulled out of PlayTV, moved into the XMB and converted through PSP Video 9 into something the PSP could understand.
TechRadar has been told that this will work easily and with little fuss with PSP Video 9 and we will trial it out for ourselves shortly to confirm this once and for all.
PlayTV is still slated for release on the 19th, and is expected to retail for £60.
