I just go an interesting e-mail from SL33PY, a regular reader here. I thought I’d post it here to get your thoughts:
–>
I have been very enthusiastic about the upcoming addition to the PS3, PlayTV. I was looking forward to finally see all channels in HD quality.
Now today after some more thorough reading I nitced that PlayTV will support only the DVB-T standard, which means roof antenna and radio waves and stuff.
I already preordered my playtv in the uk, but now I regret doing so. In Belgium there are only 3 national stations available onn DVB-T and I don’t even own an antenna. Everyone in Belgium has cable!
I just wonder why they opted for DVB-T only? DVB-T is just a subset of the DVB standard. It shouldn’t be a problem to adopt the complete standard set, being DVB-S, DVB-T and DVB-C
I just wanted to highlight this and see your pov on the matter, even tough you live in Canada and won’t see the product. I’m also interested in all the other ps3Blog readers that are from Europe.
Greets ,
SL33PY
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Written by: Blackstaffer
- Founder of PS3Blog.net 
#1 by Tosh on September 9th, 2008 [ 87441 Points ]
I would get this if it ever came to the states. I don’t have cable so this would work well for me. But I would need to upgrade my hard drive, right now it’s a 160 GB.
#2 by Pellib on September 9th, 2008
I was like you really looking forward to Play TV but after reading the specs it’s more or less useless to me as well. Very strange that they didn’t create a more versatile product a card reader is a must for it to be of any use.
#3 by Segitz on September 9th, 2008 [ 1450 Points ]
DVB-T sucks bigtime. In Germany, only the “public” channels are available nationwide and they suck for people like me (i.e.
#4 by Niels R. on September 10th, 2008
I wanted the PlayTV from the start. Although in Belgium you only receive 3 channels by DVB-T, I’m only interested in 1 (CANVAS) channel.
PlayTV would have been nice if the portability of the recordings would have stayed a feature, but now it’s not… So I will get no PlayTV and just stay stuck relying on a colleague to record my shows on his DVR
)
#5 by SL33PY on September 10th, 2008 [ 2366 Points ]
Well Niels I think they redid the portablility thing after receiving to much complaints on the removal of the feature.
Henning thanks for editing the ridiculous spelling mistakes in my mail, I only spotted them later on, thinking “OMG I hope he edits that” :p
#6 by mpz on September 10th, 2008
DVB-T is just right for Australia. And I think it is what we use for HDTV here (unlike the UK apparently). So it’s really just fine for here/almost made for the market – hopefully not too overpriced like everything else here though. A HD set top box is under $100 – but thats mostly the mpeg decoder/video/etc that playtv doesn’t need. PVR’s are somewhat more expensive.
The review on eurogamer (i think?) stated there was no drm/control on the content and they could copy it anywhere, so those reports were either miscommunication or made up.
#7 by Aldo on September 11th, 2008
DVB-T means a specific demodulator inside the box. The DVB bit may be the same, but the method for sending the data is not. So to support cable, satellite etc etc etc would require different versions of PlayTV (have you seen a STB in the shops that supports them all? Doubt it…)
#8 by SL33PY on September 11th, 2008 [ 2366 Points ]
Aldo I haven’t looked for it tbh. I just hoped that Play TV would be my replacement of the “Digicorder” (my cable company’s DVB-C dec).
This because I want to use my ps3 as the 100% center of my living room. If Play TV were DVB-C it would have been the absolute emperor of my living room.
Right now it’s just a prince.
I really hope a DVB-C version is planned an comming soon