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The PlayStation 3 (officially abbreviated as PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment.It is the successor to PlayStation 2, and is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on November 11, 2006 in Japan, November 17, 2006 in North America, and March 23, 2007 in Europe and Australia. The PlayStation 3 competed primarily against Microsoft. PlayTV is a peripheral that allows PlayStation 3s to display and record digital terrestrial television, cable and satellite TV signals are not supported. The PlayTV device is connected to a PlayStation 3 with a USB cable and must be connected to a television aerial with a standard RF cable. PlayTV software is provided with PlayTV.
As we're frequently told, we ain't seen nothing yet. PlayStation 3 (and Xbox 360) can go a lot further than the pictures and sounds we're seeing and hearing in even the very best games. Never mind Killzone 2 and LittleBigPlanet, says Sony, just you wait for the games released in the two years after that.If you find that difficult to believe, just pick up PlayTV, which acts as a Freeview box and personal video recorder (PVR), but also allows you to schedule TV recordings and then go back to gaming, watching a Blu-ray, or staring forlornly at the PlayStation Store shelves. Perhaps not the most demanding bit of multitasking ever, but a useful, invisible friend if ever you want one.Setup is simple: plug the aerial cable into the PlayTV box and run the supplied USB cable to the PS3, then insert the disc. This installs the software to the hard disk so you can bin the Blu-ray afterwards (updates will be provided by PSN, presumably), hiding the three-minute process behind an unskippable rendition of you may already have seen on Eurogamer TV.Once you're actually in, the software scans the aerial input for channels, which it then remembers. We've done this several times and it always takes about 90 seconds. Then it's into the programme guide (EPG), and you're away.EPGs are typically slow and cumbersome in our experience, but PlayTV's is slick and responsive, with good visual cues to help guide you around: there's a throbbing timeline to highlight programmes in progress, with the date and half-hour markers along the top.
When you highlight a programme, details appear in a separate window beneath the guide, showing you how much time has elapsed since the scheduled start, as well as programme info beamed down from the sky. Just don't look at the PlayTV box itself, which is fugly.To record something, you just hit the Select button, or you can scroll through a week's worth of listings to schedule recordings.
![Play Play](http://images10.newegg.com/ProductImage/A5E6_130828334442014884QOHDKf81pA.jpg)
When you've programmed in an item, the relevant time period is highlighted red at the top of the EPG, which is useful for two reasons: because your target programme may be higher or lower on the channel list and therefore out of sight, and because you can only record one thing at a time. To overcome the first part of that, you can create a favourites list that only tracks the best channels (More4 represent).This being a PVR, you can also multitask; watching another channel at the same time, or exiting the software and doing something else on the PS3. The XMB is available within the PlayTV software at a push of the Home button, with the same degree of functionality you get from games: messaging and friends management are active, but to switch to other activities you need to exit PlayTV. If you do, though, the software keeps running invisibly in the background, keeping you abreast of recording activities with Trophy-style notification: 'Recording: Property Ladder.'
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