PlayTV User

Like almost everybody else I’ve been looking to save money this year.

Now, despite running this site I still use Sky+ as my main PVR but have become increasingly disenchanted with Sky and their practices (e.g. charging an extra £10 per month for the “right” to access HD channels).

So I have been strongly considering ditching my Sky package and box and going the pure PS3 + PlayTV route, saving a fortune in the process (I currently have the full works on Sky, including Setanta, which costs above £70 per month. Ouch!).

Psyching myself up for the switch I’ve been using PlayTV as my main PVR for the last week. In terms of content, the Freeview channels suit me fine, as long as I’ve got BBC4 for the next series of Flight of the Conchords, I’m happy, but there is one thing that I can’t get past :

- the damn noise of my PS3.

Some history…

I own a 60GB PS3, purchased around two years ago, and I did notice the fans immediately were noisier than I expected, especially as I was sold on the “virtually silent” bullet point as reported by the US early adopters. Knowing this would bug me long term (I don’t know if I’m especially susceptible to being annoyed by fan noise) I took it back to Virgin (remember them?) and got a replacement.

The replacement was just the same. If anything, it was worse.

Deciding to cut my losses and anticipating that maybe this was just a bad batch, I got my money back and got Yet Another PS3 – this time from HMV.

Again – fan noise. At this point I just resigned myself to the fact that the a silent PS3 must be a myth – or I must have developed a Spidey-sense level of hearing when it comes to white noise!

Anyway, we decided to keep it – and to be fair, when you’re engrossed with your launch game de jour (Motorstorm) for the first few days, with the sound level ramped up, the fans are not something you notice.

As a result, I put the fan noise into Room 101 of my mind.

A couple of months passed until I did the usual PS3 ownwer ‘Eureka’ moment – “Hey! This thing also plays Blu-Ray movies!”.

So excitedly we rushed out to get ‘Superman Returns’ and then it hit us. This PS3 is like, erm, really noisy. For the first 30 minutes of the film it wasn’t too bad, but then it seemed like the fans were having a who can spin the loudest competition, making the dialogue only parts of the film virtually inaudible unless I played remote control jockey, quickly darting about to find the volume settings – and then turning it down again before the next theatrical instrumental surge returned (hey, at least it was more fun than the actual film).

At this point I rang Sony to get a replacement. I remember it well, it was early on a Sunday morning, and I got through to the most patronising technical support monkey I’ve ever had the misfortune to speak to.

Despite my protestations that the unit was unfit for purpose (c’mon – Sony clearly bigged up the PS3 as the ‘centre of the living room experience’ – and surely watching films counts as an integral part of that) this guy insisted that this was ‘normal’ and not a valid reason for a replacement.

Ultimately, he wore me down. I should have been more assertive, it must be related to my lack of ‘bar presence’ that means I end up waiting 20 minutes more than the average bear to get served a pint in any drinking establishment.

So I accepted the situation (and lost a lot of love for Sony and my PS3 in the process). We reasoned that we were unlikely to rent a lot of Blu-Ray movies as we already had our Sky HD movie package so it wouldn’t be that big a deal.

Fast forward two years and I now deeply regret not putting more pressure on Sony to send out a replacement as I would love to phone Sky and let them know where to tell Rupert Murdoch to stick it…but using PlayTV with my PS3 is a non-starter due to the fan noise.

So – what’s a guy to do? I could go the Freesat route with my Sky+HD box in which I cancel all my Sky packages – but then Sky still want £10 per month just so I can use the Sky+ functionality of the box (i.e. the ability to pause TV, record programmes, etc.) which I’m sure is bordering on the illegal, but somehow, like always, Sky get away with it.

No! I want to use my PlayTV and PS3 Godammit!

So, it looks like I’ll be on the lookout for a replacement PS3 (and selling the existing one on EBay), researching the PS3 bundles out there nothing really catches my eye at the moment so I might wait for the rumoured price drop. Assuming I sell my current model for around £200 and buy a new one for £300 I’ll be out of pocket to the tune of £100…or 10 months on the Sky Freesat option. Hmm….

Another sneakier alternative would be to sign up to http://www.continuousplay.co.uk/, Sony’s out of warranty insurance service for the PS3 for just £4.99 a month. I could do this for a few months to avoid suspicion, then make a claim to say the fans have “suddenly” gone bonkers, get a replacement, then cancel the insurance.

Hardly ethical, but given my experience with Sony customer support a few years back I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it.

Of course, this PS3 grand replacement plan is all based on my theory that all other PS3 models out there are actually whisper quiet. Is this the case? I’d love to know if other people are put off using their PlayTV due to the noise of their PS3 console, or is everyone happily using their PlayTV without even giving any consideration to the fan noise?