The first thing everyone says when they pick up the Play TV hardware is, ‘’Oooh, isn’t it light?’’ But its lack of weight is no surprise when you consider little more than a pair of TV tuners: all of the clever stuff is handled by your PS3 once you have installed the Play TV software from the disc provided. Upon start up you choose your region, attach the Play TV hardware to your PS3, and scan for available channels. So far, so expected, but towards the end of the process the system warns you that, if you want to use Play TV’s recording function while simultaneous playing PS3 games or watching Blu-ray discs or DVDs, it may effect gameplay or the quality of recording.

We tried the option with 14 different games, old and new, but experienced no discernible drops on performance. If there are hitches, then, we have yet to encounter them. The main Play TV menu presents seven options: ‘Live TV (the most commonly used feature, enabling you to watch the box straight away), ‘Setting’ (including parental lock, subtitles, and so on), ‘Manual’ (explaining controller functions, etc), ‘Guide’ (AKA Electronic Programming Guide or EPG), ‘Schedule’ (manage your coming recordings), ‘Find and Record’ (search for programs via keywords) and ‘Library’ (search your recording for a specific item).

Everything, from top to bottom is presented in a silkily slick manner the subtle fade-out and fade-in as you flip between channels, for example, is a tiny but sophisticated evolution over the basic flip screen with other digiboxes – and it immediately feels like a natural extension of the PS3’s ever-expanding feature set. Control, meanwhile, whether via Sixaxis or PS3 multimedia remote, is smooth and user friendly.

[via UK Playstation]