Disclaimer: Got a "review copy" of the PlayTV. Version 1.0. Message at start up says software development is in progress and there might be some "performance issues". Tested it on a retail PS3 with a Seagate Momentus 5400.5 320GB HDD.
- File size is 141MB. It installs on the HDD. No need for the disc after installation. A new "TV" icon appears on the XMB between Video and Game sections. PlayTV is located under this icon.
- In the XMB, there is a contextual option (Triangle) to delete PlayTV. "TV" icon stays in the XMB after delete but disappears at the next system start up.
- PlayTV takes about 30 secs to fully start up. From the second you push X on the XMB that is.
- Menu is incredibly slick and fast and after some minutes of set up (channels scanning etc) you are ready to go. Channels selections and going back and forth from TV to menu and viceversa is fast as hell. No pauses, no hiccups. Nothing. Awesome blur effect in the background when something is brought up in the foreground. Cool fade out/fade in effect when switching channels. GUI is a tad bit confusing at first but 5 minutes later you "get it" and it's perfect. Video upscaling is impressive. Doesn't look shit on my 720p display.
- You can change screen size of TV video in real time. Options are: 4:3, 14:9, Zoom, Wide, Auto.
- Video recordings can be moved to the XMB Video section (MPEG2 4.8Mbps). They disappear from the PlayTV library when doing so. Video file has the same name of the video program you recoded and in the Details section of the Information screen it reports all the info you can read on the TV Guide. Cool.
- Software doesn't seem to check for updates at start up (at least it doesn't say). There is an option to manually check for updates tho. The review build calls it "Game Update Check". Clearly not final. I assume updating will work kinda like Folding@Home. Unrelated to PS3 System Software updates that is.
- You can record while watching movies on both Blu-Ray and DVD (haven't tested yet).
- You can stop background recording from the XMB by simply selecting the PlayTV icon and bringing up the contextual menu (Triangle). No need to launch PlayTV to stop recording.
- PS3 does indeed turn on automatically when a scheduled recording starts. You see a black screen with a message telling you the system will turn off automatically once the recording ends. Meanwhile you can press Circle to access the XMB as you normally would when you start the system. The XMB is actually fully loaded in the background. If you have a game disc in the tray, you can actually hear the sound of its splashscreen. Basically, you don't want to have Motorstorm in the tray if u are planning to record something at night time. Just be sure to turn off TV/Speakers/whatever ok?
- When turning off the system while recording, both physically and remotely via controller, the above mentioned message appears again. System will turn off once it's finished. You can press Circle to go back to the XMB (but in this case the system wont turn off automatically) .
- Now, here come the "not so good" part. As far as "recording while playing" goes, PlayTV does indeed not affect game performance one bit, BUT the recording itself is affected by gaming. Actually, every action that requires HDD access (even bringing up the in-game/PlayTV XMB) does affect recording, causing little pauses and video glitches. It's kinda annoying if you want a perfect recording. It's like those glitches you sometimes see with satellite TV. Got it? Even receiving a message can affect the recording. Basically PlayTV gives highest priority for HDD access to everything else besides itself. To stress it, I recorded some PixelJunk Eden for 10 secs while a PlayTV recording was going on in the background. When checking the TV recording during that 10 seconds time, it was pretty fucked up. But then again, this is not 100% final. So it might have been polished a bit.
So, here it is. Fire some questions if u want. Will try to answer as soon as I can.
