and money for nothing and chicks for free

but seriously - i gave it a try and it works allright over here in australia - I borrowed one for a day and it's a MUST buy item for me or any PS3 owner - serious value adding for any PS3.

And for anyone else it's a Seriously good FULL HD PVR even if that was all you used it for !.

issues and good things  ----->

Program guide and recording setup is very easy and fast.

Records HD but had stutter when watching and recording a seperate HD channel at same time but the recorded program was fine when I played back.

Can copy to external USB HDD and play back on  pc or laptop etc - i  found the player in the PS3 home menue is not robust as the playTV playback but my linux mplayer software also worked fine though.

I Installed a new 320gb 2.5inch SATA HDD for AUD $102 so i can record for hours AND you can copy recordings to an external USB HDD as well. Since external HDD is fat32 it just breaks big recordings into 4Gb chunks i found.

It's auto power on and record and power off.

I expect the issues i had will be fixed in new firmware updates and even as is it worked quite well.

The most serious issue with PlayTV in australia though is that you can't actually buy it. Only way to get it is online from the UK - I hope they fix this issue soon this is one of the best pieces of add on kit any console owner can get.

$600 for PS3 + ~$150? for PlayTV + $102 for 320Gb HDD= $852 you get a FULL HD dual Tuner PVR and BD player.

http://www.ebgames.com.au/PS3/product.cfm?ID=11558

Just in case anyonw is browsing for info on playtv in australia here is a usefull link

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=ps3_playtv

And yep still waiting for it to officially release - i want SBS to work as well.

How difficult can it be to do this what are sony up to ?  it allreay works if you dont want SBS why dont they release and fix it after release. ?

Update for any interested
It's still not released here people still have to import them from the UK.
The price of HD standalone recorders has come down to to almost aud$500 so sony are going to loose more potential sales if they dont get it released soon.
All they need to do is fix the SBS UHF reception issue which is supposed to be a software patch away and it's good to go.
The jitter when view+ record 2 channels in HD 1080 can allways be fixed later with a patch.
If no release here soon i will probably go standalone recorder since SBS is a must have for me.

I have the PlayTv in France, and you're right, it's a must have.

Only thing that is not that good here is the Tv guide, we only see the next two programs. But it's not a problem of the playTV, it's the way it works here...

i should really get play tv for my room, its a toss up between it and Resident Evil 5 this week, which should i get!

Im interested in getting it, il see.

Buy it! Thanks to it, I've been able to watch the Superbowl (I'm french and it's showed late at night here) that I recorded from my bed, on my PSP.

PS3+PlayTV+Remote Play+PSP is full of win.

When i borrowed PlayTV and trialed it for a day the program guide worked quite well - 48 hours or more in advance i recall - as mentioned this is actually a product of the broadcast stations so they determine how far in advance it can go if they provide the data for the week the playtv software will display it all.

I Have heard UK people say it does not do HD - the reason for that mistaken belief is that they dont transmit HD in the UK - over here in AU where every station has HD most of them 1080i it works fine- except for the stutter if watching and recording 2 sperate HD stations at once.

In France, HD doesn't work on PlayTV. We have HD channels but they use MPeg4, or one kind of it (I'm not a pro), that the PlayTV can't decode. I don't know if it's a tuner issue or a firmware issue.

I guess it's a firmware issue, but Sony said it won't be fixed so...

Got mine yesterday but my HDD is almost full so I need to upgrade in order to record stuff.

I wasn't sure about Digital HD because I found nothing on the sony website that stated clearly if it was HD compatible or not, maybe I missed it.

And yes, the remote play+PSP is great.