Sony PlayTV, the digital TV tuner/DVR for PS3 that is not available in the US, is getting some “great new features,”. That doesn’t mean squat to you and I. But, if you’re in England, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, or the UAE, it means Facebook integration.

There are also some “other great enhancements,” but sadly the company is not talking about those yet. We should find out “later this year,” according to James Thorpe, PlayStation Network Product Manager.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. has officially endorsed two new 500 gigabyte external USB hard drives for the PS3, in Japan. The Buffalo HD-AV500U2 and the HD-CL500U2 are the first add-on storage solutions to be officially recognized by Sony and are being released overseas in March. The launch coincides with the launch of the PS3′s “torne” DVR hardware / software combo.

Neither drive has any special features that make them usable only with PS3; in fact, the HD-CL500U2 is basically one of Buffalo’s already available external HDDs, with a model number change. The HD-AV500U2 will fit into your existing entertainment center setup and has a handy blue LED display that shows remaining disk space.

There are many uses today for hard drives optimized for storing and streaming video files. Uses for this type of drive include DVRs, video work stations, and video surveillance applications. Hitachi has announced its latest video centric drive that is added to its CinemaStar line.

The new drive is called the CinemaStar C5K500 and is a 2.5-inch drive offering a maximum capacity of 500GB. The small drive is designed for silent operation, cool running, and low power usage. The rotational speed of the drive is 5400 rpm and is uses Hitachi SmoothStream technology to enhance digital video streaming applications.

ARCHOS recently announced the launch of their new Gen 5 lineup of personal media players leading out with the ARCHOS 605 WiFi as an upgrade to the 604 WiFi model featuring higher quality screen resolution and easier access media content. It features a higher resolution 800 x 480 4.3 inch touch screen, WiFi connectivity and comes in sizes of 4GB flash with an SD card slot or drive capacities of 30GB, 80GB or 160GB.

ARCHOS takes more advantage of the WiFi capabilities with the Gen 5 versions through a couple of new …

We had a sneak-preview of the ARCHOS 704 WiFi via the FCC last month, and now ARCHOS announced the new ARCHOS 704-WiFi. Boasted as the only portable media player with a 7inch screen and full WiFi capabilities, the 704-WiFi also has a very high quality screen with a resolution of 800×480 with 6 million colors. Just as the older 604-WiFi model, the 704 comes with video, music and photo playback, as well as full internet access whatever your needs may be. Along with these features, the …

It’s a well known secret; I guess then that it’s not really a secret, that you can get HDTV broadcasts over the airwaves. That’s right; if you have an HDTV tuner you can pick up many of the local stations that broadcast in High-Def. If you’re a mobile type and travel a lot and you want to watch HDTV broadcasts anywhere with an HDTV signal, you are in luck. AutumnWave’s OnAir HDTV-GT lets you connect an HDTV tuner to your laptop or PC with a USB connection.

The …

The Archos 604 WiFi is very similar to the previous version of the Archos 604 Video Player that we featured in September, but they’ve added a very cool feature – WiFi. The WiFi feature enables wireless connections to transfer files, as well as wireless surfing of the web and emailing (through web based email systems) right out of the device.

The Archos 604 is still the same great solution for watching portable videos, and also works great for viewing photos and listening to music, a lot of which you can …

The Archos 604 is a portable multimedia player for all standard video formats in a full DVD resolution, including MPEG-4 ASP, WMV (and protected WMV) as well as MPEG-2 and VOB with a software plug in.

The Archos 604 has a 30G hard drive to store up to 130 hours of encoded video. The screen is a 4.3″ wide screen, which gives quite a bit more view that most portable video players out there. You can view them right on the screen, or output them to a full size television and still …