It's now possible to watch video recorded to a PC's hard drive on a TV via a new product for the PlayStation 2. Austin, Texas-based BroadQ is offering Qcast Tuner, software to connect the PS2 with a PC running SnapStream Media's Personal Video Station software, which was released last year. The program allows a PC connected to a TV signal to record and play back programs using the PC's hard drive, similar to stand-alone devices such as the TiVo video recorder.

　　To date, playback of SnapStream programming has been limited to monitors and other devices connected to a PC. But the network adapter Sony released for the PS2 last month finally gives the company a pathway to television sets, SnapStream CEO Rakesh Agrawal said. "We've faced the problem of how do we get the content you've recorded to a television, because that's where people want to watch it," he said. "The PS2 gives us one path; there are going to be others."

　　David Cole, president of research firm DFC Intelligence, noted that Sony executives have talked about using the PlayStation as a multimedia device, but it will be a few years before such ideas are practical.

　　"I think the overall idea of being able to view video and other content via the game console, that has real long-term potential, but I think you're talking four or five years down the road," he said. "You're really looking more at the PlayStation 3. By then, people will have more of the home networking capacity, and the game systems themselves will have more capacity."