Sony PlayTV

I'd say that review is absolutely spot on. Also, having owned the unit for a few weeks now, I have missed 2-3 recordings. Not really an explanation why it failed, just that it failed. Which isn't good. Fortunately, since I already have a PVR, I set things to record on both. This ensures that, barring a power failure, at least one should work.

This is fine for me of course, but not much use to someone who's bought this to be their only PVR. With any luck, these issues will be ironed out over the next few months with firmware upgrades.

Well, as with the DVD playback on the PS3, Sony have not been resting on their laurels and update 1.02 has made some big changes for the good on the PlayTV front:

1. Reliability much improved - no failed recordings so far, even when the clocks went forward at the weekend which is a very good sign.

2. EPG now populates pretty much instantly - big complaint at start has been fixed.

3. Most importantly for me, the picture quality has been improved significantly, so much so that it will now be my preferred method of watching off-air broadcasts. This is the main reason I purchased it.

So I think, if you are already a PS3 owner, this should definitely be on your list of things to check out, especially at only £60. With another £50 spent on a hard drive upgrade (see the guide in the signature of my posts in the forum), existing PS3 owners can get an excellent 500GB PVR for just £110! That's got to value for money!

This review has a very negative bias. It hardly seems fair to knock a Freeview recorder for not supporting HD when broadcasts don't even exist yet! And merely mentioning this fact hardly excuses the review's tone.

Besides actually reviewing the product as-is (all you say is the UI is 'Sony slick'; how about some more detail?), I think you ought to consider re-reviewing this product soon. According to Wikipedia, the latest update has added HD playback support, and a future update will include HD recording. There's also mention for full HD support in Australia (where I presume they're already broadcasting DVB-T HD?).

Also, a past update added SD upscaling, so your picture quality complaints should now be rectified as well.