We truly are living in an age of wonders. No longer do we have to be content with a mere five TV channels. Thanks to the advent of digital television, us viewers now have access to an amazing new world of entertainment. A world where there's so much to watch that we're spoilt for choice. At least, that's the theory. In actual fact, while there are some digital TV programmes worth watching, there are also a heck of a lot of repeats. There's only so many times you can watch the same episode of CSI before you find yourself mumbling the dialogue in your sleep.

But given that terrestrial TV is set to be turned off-some regions have already lost their signal-you'll need to switch to digital at some point. Otherwise you may find yourself watching static. There a few ways to gain access to digital TV, aside from paying for Virgin Media or Sky TV. You can buy a new digital capable TV, or pick up a plug-in set top box for your existing TV. Or, if you have a Playstation 3, you can use Sony's Play TV-a handy gizmo which plugs into your console and lets you watch digital terrestrial TV, or Freeview as it's known. Furthermore, you can pause live TV, and even record whole programmes to your hard disk. Although if you're planning on doing the latter and only have a 40GB hard disk, you might want to swap your hard disk out for a bigger one.

PlayTV's interface works pretty well-once you've installed the software from the accompanying DVD, a PlayTV icon appears on your PS3's dashboard. From within the PlayTV software you can watch live TV, view a 7 day programme guide, view your recorded programmes and search for programmes by name. You can even set PlayTV to record the same TV show on a regular basis-although unlike Sky Plus, it won't automatically adjust the recording schedule if the show goes out earlier or later. You do have to have a decent aerial in order to view Freeview, but PlayTV is actually pretty good at handling channels with a lower signal strength; channels that I'd had problems with on my old Freeview box were actually watchable on PlayTV. PlayTV can also, in theory, record high definition Freeview broadcasts; although since there are no HD channels being broadcast on terrestrial digital, that's kind of a moot point. But PlayTV does a great job of upscaling regular Freeview programmes, making them look better on a HD capable TV than they otherwise would.

So is PlayTV an essential purchase for any PS3 owners looking to get Freeview? Not quite. There are a couple of minor issues with PlayTV, and one quite big one. The first minor niggle is that while PlayTV lets you watch one TV channel while recording another, you can't record two channels at once. There are some personal video recorders that offer this feature, and while it's not a facility I've needed very often, there have been occasions when there two programmes at the same time that I would have liked to record. Secondly, the PlayTV box has no aerial splitter built in, so if you want to send your aerial signal to another device, you'll need to pick up an aerial splitter from Poundland or somewhere. Both of which are fairly minor issues-however, there is a bigger problem-PlayTV's price.

PlayTV's recommended retail price is £69.99, which isn't cheap. Regular Freeview boxes which don't record television can be had for around twenty pounds, and Freeview Recorders, which have many of the same features that PlayTV does, start at eighty pounds. I don't regret buying my PlayTV, because I was able to get it from Argos for £39.99. Had it been priced at £69.99 or even £59.99, I would have spent the money on a Freeview Recorder instead. Price may also be a factor if you have a 40GB hard disk, since you'd need to spend money on upgrading the internal hard disk too. If you have a decent sized hard drive, and can get PlayTV for £49.99 or less, then it's well worth picking up. If, on the other hand, you only have a 40GB hard disk in your PS3 or you can only find PlayTV at it's RRP of £69.99, then you're best off buying a Freeview Recorder or waiting till Sony see fit to drop PlayTV's retail price.  PlayTV is a great bit of kit, it's just a little too pricey.