Yes, 2010 may seem a little late to launch a Playstation 2 Product, but that's exactly
when this, Playstation 2 TV was launched.
Also known under the incredibly marketable name of the Sony Bravia KDL-22PX300 LCD TV,
this package consists of a 22" Bravia television cunningly mounted onto base, containing a
Playstation 2 whilst also acting as the stand, but why, and how, and... why?
Well, as the noughties rolled on and with the Playstation 3 having been on sale since
November 2006 internationally, or March 2007 for us in Europe, the story goes that Sony
found themselves with some surplus PAL region Playstation 2 hardware and were looking for
somewhere to shove it without digging a huge pit in the desert.
Technically, in some regions, the PS2 was actually available in retail until 2013, with
the slimline version introduced in 2004, making up the bulk of later sales, so maybe this
was a side project for the work placement lad, in any case, it was a stroke of genius.
As we all know, the PS2 was a huge success, partly because of an ace up it's sleeve; the
ability to play DVDs.
Many people grabbed one after launch, as it was actually cheaper than buying a new DVD
player, essentially killing two birds with one stone.
Of course, a consoles built into a television wasn't a new concept by now, it had been attempted
with varying success, mainly in Japan, and on a limited scale.
But having a DVD player built into TVs was common place by the late noughties, so if
you could get a PS2 for free as well, why the hell not?
The PS2 library was vast, and there were people still enthusiastically engaged in their 10
year old kit, so it made perfect sense.
By late 2010, news outlets were spreading word of this TV like wildfire.
There were rumours of European availability, and the possibility of it coming to the United
States, however Sony weren't officially "pushing" the product, whatever that means, and so it's
arrival was a limited one, making it's way only onto UK shelves, and only stocked by
certain branches of the retailer, Richer Sounds.
It's December arrival was early enough to hit the Christmas sales, and priced at £200,
stock didn't last long.
It made the perfect purchase to stick in the bedroom, gaining a TV, DVD player, CD player
and gaming device in one fell swoop, but yet it's exclusivity remained a limited one, and
once the UK stock had sold, the TV was no more.
So allow me to share mine with you, because it's actually a pretty nice package.
As you can see from the label, mine is indeed from December 2010, and behind that label
is your typical Bravia television, offering a very decent image quality.
It outputs at up to 720p, and offers a whopping 4 HDMI ports on the back.
Well two on the side, two on the back.
But still....
FOUR!
That's more than most TVs today have!
Plus, these ports can all accept 1080p signals, even if it only pushes them at 720.
We've also got an ethernet connection for the TV.
VGA in, Component in, Scart in, aerial in and over here, we have both digital and phono
sound outputs.
Along with those side HDMIs, we can also find our standard composite connections and the
legally standard PCMCIA slot for upgrades, subscription services and the like.
Personally I'm sure they're part of some government conspiracy, if a member of MI5 plugs a card
in, then Zoltar appears on screen and grants a wish.
Anyway, this TV is very well specified for connections, and we don't sacrifice any inputs
for the PS2 as it's wired directly into the TV.
It would have been nice if the TV ethernet connection also connected the PS2, but unfortunately,
that has it's own port, next to it's own optical out.
Still, at least it has one, unlike the original PS2 models.
But it does confirm how this thing was just pieced together, I mean this PS2 is literally
bolted to the bottom, rather flushly of course - I mean, it didn't fall out of Dave's DIY
Den - but it does kinda limit your wall mounting options.
Still, at least we only have only have one cable from this thing... the power cable,
with a standard British plug.
I'll just run you over the standard television functions to start with.
The menu works just like the PS2 menu, which is nice.
We've got a digital tuner, which I attempted to tune in with this pathetic joke of an aerial.
I found nothing.
For old times sake I tried the analogue tuner as well.
Nothing.
I thought about plugging in a Spectrum and going, oh look, it's found a rogue Spectrum
signal from the past.
But then I thought, don't be bloody ridiculous, get a grip man.
We can also try to connect up to that fangled internet thing and access on demand services
such as....
Youtube, LoveFilm...
BlipTV..... and even Picasa
Well, we could if the services still worked.
The TV can connect to the internet ok, it's just these services, or at least the software
to connect to them, are now obsolete, and I can't even update them.
Back in 2010, the £200 price tag, made this one of the cheapest "smart TVs" available
at the time, and that's not even considering the built in Playstation.
However, one gripe owners seemed to have back in 2010 was the TVs apparent inability to
load iPlayer - the BBC on Demand service.
It seems strange that almost every other internet ready Bravia TV could so do.
Maybe the software or even the hardware they pieced together for this, just isn't capable
of the task.
Still, the TV will connect to local media devices so you can look at pictures or just
listen to obscure game sound tracks you have on a local storage device, somewhere, but
you have no idea where.
Sony have also thrown in their own MP3 to create some atmosphere.
It also has DivX Codecs for watching various video formats.
Of course, we can also watch DVDs through the Playstation.
The manual states we need to use either a controller or the PS2 remote to access the
DVD controls, but the Bravia TV remote actually does the job just fine, allowing me to observe
Berk on a whopping 22" screen.
Remember, this would have been a huge TV back in the 80s, even if its now considered pretty
small.
Being a PAL machine, it doesn't play NTSC discs, so I won't be able to watch Brogan's
adventures from this American box set of Space Precinct, which is a shame.
Anyway, let's play some games.
What?
Whaaaat?
Isn't this supposed to happen.
I was just testing the HDMI ports work, FORGET IT.
Taking a detailed look at this front panel, you might notice that placement wise, it's
similar to the PS2 slim.
In fact, its internals are made up from PS2 slim stock - most likely the size reduced
90000 models.
I couldn't tell you which board revision is in this one exactly, but we do get a revised
BIOS, showing the model as PX-300, rather than SCPH-xxxx - more obviously, rather than
having a flip open DVD tray, we get a satisfying button which pops open a sliding door.
Nice.
Like the PS2 slim, the front reveals controller ports, memory slots and 2 USB connectors to
the right.
Also, like the various slim iterations, there's no ilink connector and you can't slip a hard
drive in this thing, so no Final Fantasy XI I'm afraid, but given the online servers shut
down in 2016, that's not much of an issue really.
Of course, being an LCD, you won't be able to play any light gun games either, but no
one really cares.
To launch the console we simply press the button on the remote which flicks to the Playstation
channel, and power on the console.
Now remember, the PS2 arrived in a world which was still predominantly using 4:3 screen ratios
and where HDMI didn't even yet exist, however the console can output a progressive scan
mode of 480p.
As indicated, the resolution boots up in 576i, which is the standard interlaced mode for
PAL regions, but we can tell the Playstation to switch to progressive usually by holding
down the triangle and x buttons on load.
The fact this works tells us that the console is wired up in a method akin to component
connections, and without the signal noise associated with some of the later thicc PS2
models, so we're getting the best the PS2 has to offer here.
Some games offer a progressive scan option in their options menu, although to be honest,
the different is sometimes hard to notice.
As well as changing the screen mode, I've dimmed the lighting here to create a better
atmosphere for Spy. vs Spy.
One of my favourite 8 bit games, and this "modern" version is actually pretty damn good.
Of course, if we're using progressive scan, we're likely to be using a 16:9 screen format.
We can this display mode to 16:9 in the options screen.
In fact we can change to all manner of screen formats, but actually I find the default "smart"
setting works quite well - it offers a compromise between the huge 4:3 borders, and distorting
a standard 4:3 picture excessively.
Purists can of course, set the correct screen format themselves.
Still it's not a given that every game supports progressive scan or 16:9 screen formats, in
fact, most don't - especially in PAL regions - and therefore some games will drop into
a standard 4:3 interlaced mode.
There are ways to force a 16:9 ratio using Code Breaker or a number of homebrew integrations
such as Free McBoot, but the later slim boards removed the exploit which allowed you to boot
from memory card, therefore I don't have that option here.
But, in any case, the standard screen modes look pretty nice through the Bravia.
For me the PS2 is the point where games made that jump into what I'd call "a modern looking
game".
Of course the PS2 is backwards compatible with PS1 games.
Some people may have experienced issues running PS1 games over component cables, given most
run at 240p (or 288p for us Limeys), but with the PS2 TV, there is no issue.
PS1 games run and look absolutely splendid, even with the side borders.... this could
take a while, best you come back later.
Back to PS2 stuff, I thought I'd give Gran Turismo 4 a whirl, because it's one of the
few games that can actually run at 1080i.
But then I remembered, this is the PAL version of the game, which doesn't have that functionality
at all.
So I'm stuck with good old 576i.
Even so, it looks pretty sweet.
Shame I can't play it for sh*t.
So there we have it.
The PS2 TV.
A bit of an oddity, but like most odd things, fascinating none the less.
Well, it is for me at least, despite how relatively modern it is.
So, thanks for watching.
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Have a great evening!