NHK Cosmomedia has done a good job establishing NHK World Japan as its free overseas streaming and VOD service. It uses the TV Japan brand for its cable and satellite channel in North American and NHK World Premium outside North America.

Were I the marketing consultant for NHK Cosmomedia, I'd go with TV Japan as the brand for all linear TV programming. NHK World Japan would continue as the free service and the subscription streaming services would inherit the NHK World Premium brand.

Or it could follow the herd and call it Plus. And, in fact, NHK's domestic streaming service (geoblocked outside of Japan) is called NHKプラス (NHK+).

Along with the recent removal of geo-blocking from NHK's flagship news programs (branded as NHK World Premium content), the noticeably improved video quality also hints at a possible integration between NHK World Japan and NHK World Premium.

NHK World Japan had always compressed the heck out of its video feeds. So while relatively still images delivered the full HD quality, any motion (such as during a sumo tournament) resulted in on-screen pixelation and artifacting.

But watching the November 2023 sumo tournament, I couldn't help noticing how much the video quality had improved. We're talking leaps and bounds. Almost no image distortion at all. Crystal clear HD even with full motion.

Raising the bar like this may be a first step to a tiered unification of NHK's online services. Another clue is that two of NHK's domestic satellite channels, BS1 and BS Premium, merged into NHK BS on December 1, 2023.

Going forward, content consolidation will become the name of the game as NHK faces an aging and literally shrinking audience, with the population of Japan predicted to drop another 10 million by the end of the decade.

Once upon a time, I subscribed to TV Japan. Were money no object, I still would, but it is only available on cable and DirecTV and is insanely expensive to boot.

The actual TV Japan subscription by itself still costs the same $25/month it has for decades. That price is dear enough, and doesn't include the ever growing mountain of taxes and fees Xfinity piles on top of even its "Limited Basic" tier.

South Korea's closest counterpart to TV Japan is the streaming service Kocowa, a joint venture between the top three Korean broadcast networks. A basic (ad-free) subscription to Kocowa runs $70/year.

That's about how much TV Japan costs a month on Xfinity. Cost alone is a big reason why live Japanese content has little chance of achieving the same market success outside Japan as anime or Kdrama.

Labels: dish, dlibjapan, japanese tv, jdrama, kdrama, nhk, nhk cosmomedia, nhk world, streaming, tv japan

NHK Cosmomedia operates NHK World, NHK World Premium (TV Japan in North America), and dLibrary Japan.

NHK World has free streaming apps and is available over-the-air in some markets (UEN-TV in Utah). dLibrary Japan is a subscription streaming service. TV Japan is live television available only as a premium from DirecTV and most cable providers.

I didn't follow TV Japan to DirecTV when NHK Cosmomedia dumped Dish and the price of an à la carte subscription almost doubled (Xfinity is no better). Especially when I found I could subscribe to the big three anime streaming services and Netflix and dLibrary Japan for less.

In the meantime, dLibrary Japan improved its app and catalog, so much so that I've dropped the big three and still get more anime than I have time to watch from Netflix and Tubi. Funimation acquired Crunchyroll from AT&T and AT&T spun off DirecTV to private equity firm TPG while remaining the majority owner.

In one of those comically understated corporate press releases, AT&T admitted that "It's fair to say that some aspects of the [DirecTV acquisition] have not played out as we had planned, such as pay TV households in the US declining at a faster pace across the industry than anticipated back in 2014."

"Not playing out as we planned" means "we took a $15.5 billion impairment on the business in 4Q20."

A boutique content provider like NHK Cosmomedia illustrates the problem in miniature, as it tries to embrace new technologies while not drawing customers away from its premium live television business that launched in 1991. The hospitality industry is one of NHK's biggest international customers and satellite is often the only way to serve them.

But North America is a big market too, and that delivery model is dying on the vine. Elon Musk may soon deliver the coup de grâce with his low-orbit satellite Internet service.

To give NHK credit where it's due, it's been doing a good job hedging its bets, steadily building out its streaming catalogs and providing decent apps. The rudimentary dLibrary Japan Roku app does what it has to do well enough. It does inexplicably lock up once in a blue moon (losing horizontal sync like an old tube TV), but is fine after a reboot.

NHK Cosmomedia has also added content like the monthly Kiyo in Kyoto from powerhouse anime studio J.C. Staff to the (free) NHK World lineup.

The one curious disappointment with dLibrary Japan has been NHK's flagship Asadora and Taiga dramas. dLibrary Japan had a respectable lineup when the service launched, and I expected that they'd continue to get series a year or so after running on NHK and TV Japan. But that hasn't happened.

By the end of August, they'll all be gone from the service.

On the bright side, Aibou ("Partners") is finally on dLibrary Japan. It's one the best police procedurals in the genre, now in its eighteenth season. Yutaka Mizutani plays Detective Ukyo Sugishita as a mix of the persistent inquisitiveness of Peter Falk's Columbo and the fastidiousness of Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes.

The only caveat is that they're starting with seasons one, eight, eleven, fourteen, and eighteen. I guess the idea is to give us a one-season sampler of each of Detective Sugishita's partners.

Yasufumi Terawaki as Kaoru Kameyama, Sugishita's Watson, left the show after seven seasons. Mitsuhiro Oikawa and Hiroki Narimiya stepped in for three seasons each before Takashi Sorimachi took over the role in 2015 and I think created a character that truly filled Kaoru Kameyama's shoes. I've got to hope they'll get around to filling in the gaps.

The scripts were solid from the start, so it's fun to see a young Yasufumi Terawaki in a rough-around-the-edges season one in all its 4:3 SD glory. Most of the supporting cast was already in place, like Kazuhisa Kawahara playing an ornery Lestrade, Seiji Rokkaku as the CSI guy, and veteran character actor Ittoku Kishibe in the Mycroft Holmes role.

Also on dLibrary Japan, Ittoku Kishibe is great as the managing partner of a big law firm in 99.9, a police procedural about a team of eccentric criminal defense lawyers.

dLibrary Japan has a good deal of high quality content. Its biggest weakness in the North American market is that most of the television series aren't subtitled (most of the movies are), though I've noticed that more and more now have machine-translated subtitles (which are useful though of questionable quality).

dLibrary Japan licenses shows for a year or so, and thus has no backlist to speak of, but acquires new titles at a steady clip.

dLibrary Japan's only real competition in live-action scripted television is Rakuten Viki. Unlike dLibrary Japan, subtitling is standard. The programming on Rakuten Viki tends to target a teen to twenty-something audience, while dLibrary Japan appears aimed at an ex-pat forty-plus demographic.

Pretty much the same difference between the domestic audiences for NHK and its commercial competitors in general. Unlike public broadcasters like PBS and the BBC, NHK strives to be about as artistically cutting edge as a butter knife (though it prides itself in its technological prowess).

Related posts

Tubi (update 1)
(Almost) Live Japanese TV
dLibrary Japan (another update)

Labels: anime, crunchyroll, directv, dish, dlibjapan, japanese, japanese tv, nhk cosmomedia, nhk world, streaming, tubi, tv japan, viki

A commenter contributed a comprehensive overview of the Nippon TV and NECO International channels to the (Almost) Live Japanese TV post. It deserved a post of its own. The press release linked to below also makes me wonder if AT&T Now plans to expand its international offerings in the future.

According to this press release, Nippon TV is supposed to be available via IPTV and OTT (though some programs won't be available).

The press release mentions DirectNow as an AT&T OTT service, and that DirecTV subscribers can live stream TV through the Apple or Android app. I wonder if they are referring to either of these services when they mentioned the availability of OTT and IPTV services? In any case, at the moment, Nippon TV isn't available to live stream from the app and isn't available via AT&T TV (DirecTV Now's new name) either. So perhaps this will be a future goal for Nippon TV?

Anyhow, I have DirecTV and I'm subscribed to all the Japanese channels. Comparatively, Nippon TV and NECO International have less variety in their programming than TV Japan. Both of the newer channels still have a "work in progress" feel to them. So possibly their programming mix may change over time.

Once in a blue moon, TV Japan programs will have English subtitles, English dubbed audio available, or shows featuring people who speak in English. However Nippon TV and NECO International are solely in Japanese with no subtitles or alternative audio options.

At the moment, NECO International plays nothing but classic Nikkatsu movies. It's like the Japanese version of Turner Classic Movies. However the channel's mascot is a bright orange cat dressed like a rapper. Seems like an odd mascot to have for a classic channel. So it seems like they'll add some modern movies eventually. In fact, today they showed Bamy, a 2017 Japanese indie Horror movie, the most modern movie they've shown thus far.

As for Nippon TV, it mostly shows dramas and variety shows. No news, no documentaries, no music shows, no sports (though eventually it's going to broadcast Yomiuri Giants games), no anime and no talk shows.

About eleven dramas series run each week. Every month features two simulcast dramas. Right now the featured simulcast drama are If Talking Paid and Nippon Noir. Most of Nippon TV's dramas shown are fairly new, around 2018–2019, with a few dated ones (older than 2017) mixed in. Dramas also include Hulu Japan exclusives and some WOWOW versions. After the last episode of a drama has aired two to three times, it is replaced on the schedule with another drama. So that the lineup doesn't go stale.

The variety shows are Tokuson Life Hacks, The Quest, Matsuko in the Room, Matsuko Roid, two Arashi shows (Ninosan and Must be Arashi), season 16 of Gochi Dinner is on You, Shot, Monday Night Light Show, Celebrity Confessions to Ariyoshi, and some other talento/celebrity driven variety shows. Over the course a week, about eleven to thirteen variety shows run on the channel.

Nippon TV and NECO International repeat programming but it isn't done in an annoying way. It seems as if it is done in way to reach every US time zone. This gives many the opportunity to catch up on a show they missed.

I'm happy with all of the channels. These new channels complement, rather than replace TV Japan. At least one new Nippon TV drama still simulcasts on TV Japan per month. This month it's Our Dearest Sakura, which is only on TV Japan at the moment. However The Quest (variety show) and Shoten (comedy show) air simultaneously on TV Japan and Nippon TV. However I think each channel airs different seasons.

Labels: directv, dish, japanese tv, nippon tv, roku, streaming, television, tv japan

So after a dozen years, I bid Dish a fond farewell. I must point out that the agent I spoke with was affable, courteous, and professional. If that's the norm at Dish in customer retention, my hat's off to them. Well done. I wouldn't have left if TV Japan hadn't left first.

TV Japan is why I subscribed to Dish in the first place. As I have documented in previous posts, in early 2018, TV Japan (née NHK Cosmomedia) abandoned Dish and made DirecTV its exclusive satellite provider. No explanation for only making their satellite service exclusive.

Family Gekijyo filled the empty programming slot. In Japan, Family Gekijyo resembles ION TV, its schedule consisting of a few original shows and a whole bunch of reruns. The problem is, Family Gekijyo in Japan in no way resembles the Family Gekijyo that Dish ended up with.

Perhaps Family Gekjyo is using the channel assignment as a placeholder for something else. Though it's more likely it underestimated the cost and difficulty of negotiating overseas rights for the content it broadcasts in Japan. Its Dish offerings are old, threadbare, and repetitious.

NHK, by contrast, has an annual operating budget of around $7 billion and an equivalent amount of political pull.

Which is too bad. Dish charged over thirty dollars less than DirecTV and Xfinity for a "limited basic" package plus a premium international channel. (If you're an Internet or cable subscriber, the Xfinity rate card can be downloaded here.)

A dozen years with Dish established my pain point at $40/month total for a single à la carte programming package. TV Japan isn't available on Xfinity Instant TV. The lowest-cost "cable box" package pushes the out-of-pocket to $75/month, and that's not including all the additional taxes and fees.

Almost $80/month to access a single channel? No way, no how. Frankly, even $40/month is too rich for my blood these days, especially compared to what streaming has to offer.

Crunchyroll is the biggest anime kid on the block and has the best website. Lots of reviews. Funimation has a smaller library but is the biggest licensee of physical media in North America. It's hard to pass over since the partnership with Crunchyroll ended and Funimation left with its exclusive content.

The thing is, these services are so affordable that subscribing to a couple will hardly break the bank.

Tubi is an ad-supported free streaming service with a surprising number of Japanese movies and anime. The ads can get samey but they are parceled out parsimoniously, they're not loud, and the ad engine is well-integrated. The overall viewing experience is superior to commercial TV.

For the time being, here's my list of go-to Roku channels:

 • Crunchyroll ($79.99/year)
 • HIDIVE ($47.99/year)
 • NHK World (free)
 • Tubi (free)

dLibrary Japan ($9.99/month) is how NHK Cosmomedia reuses content originally licensed for TV Japan. When it first launched, it charged too much for too little. But it's been steadily adding content to its catalog. Once it gets a Roku app, I'll kick the tires and drive it around the block.

Even with dLibrary Japan, I'll be nowhere near that $40/month threshold.

Related sites

Crunchyroll
dLibrary Japan
HIDIVE
NHK World
Roku
Tubi TV
TV Japan

Labels: crunchyroll, directv, dish, dlibjapan, family gekijyo, funimation, hidive, japanese tv, nhk, nhk cosmomedia, nhk world, roku, streaming, technology, television, tubi, tv japan

AT&T CEO John Donovan recently announced that, going forward, DirecTV would be transitioning from satellite transmission to streaming technology for content distribution. In other words, depending less on outer space and more on wires hanging from telephone poles.

To be sure, in large swaths of the United States and the world, there are still no viable alternatives to satellite content delivery. But like a medieval circle of fate, technology is always circling around to where it began. The old becomes brand new again.

In terms of the large-scale infrastructure, the communications satellite was a simpler solution than the microwave relay stations that once dotted the land. In turn, those relay stations were a vast improvement over the copper wire telephone circuits they replaced.

Fiber optic cable wiped out the microwave towers and may soon do in the communications satellites.

Like the transistor, vacuum tube electronics, and the internal combustion engine, the amazing thing about television satellite service is that it works at all, let alone that it can be mass-produced as a consumer good.

A communications satellite orbits 22,236 miles above the equator, a tenth of the way to the Moon. And yet it beams a signal down to the Earth's surface that can be scooped up with an eighteen-inch dish on your roof and decompressed into 500 channels.

When I first got Dish, I was impressed at how "clean" the picture was. Completely static free. These days, it's ho-hum compared to free over-the-air HDTV.

OTA HDTV breathed new life into the old UHF broadcast spectrum. 5G networks promise to steal that precious "last mile" connection to the home away from fiber and cable.

Google's foray into the home Internet business ran into the buzz saw of regulatory capture, which lets cable cartels box out the competition. So Microsoft is going wireless instead, much as the smartphone leapfrogged the landline in the developing world.

The Microsoft Airband Initiative launched in July 2017 with the goal of working with partners to make broadband available to 2 million Americans in rural communities who lack access today and to help catalyze an ecosystem to connect millions more.

Radio really is all the rage these days. Smartphones are just smart radios operating at UHF frequencies. That microwave relay technology that got passed over by the telecommunications satellite and then buried by fiber optics? It didn't go away. It mutated.

Back in 2016, Ars Technica reported that some of those old microwave towers are being repurposed to augment fiber optic networks. Because it's cheaper than laying brand new fiber and because radio signals move through the air faster than light through fiber.

And let's not too hastily write off satellites either. Elon Musk plans to tackle the latency problem of satellite-based Internet service with a swarm of satellites in low Earth orbit (such that at end-of-life they'll simply burn up in the atmosphere).

Every time you turn around, another moribund technology is "not dead yet." The solid-state disc drive should have sent old-fashioned "spinning rust" into retirement. Except every time it's knocked to the canvas, the hard disk drive staggers back to its feet like Rocky Balboa.


For example, Seagate has successfully prototyped a 16TB HDD using HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording). The heat comes from a laser diode attached to the read/write head. Western Digital answered that challenge with a 16TB MAMR HDD (Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording).

In the steampunk space opera future I like to imagine, the only way to build a faster-than-light starship engine will be with old-fashioned vacuum tubes and analog circuitry. And thus technology from the 1930s will end up being the most modern thing ever.

Labels: business, computers, directv, dish, radio, tech history, technology, television

TV Japan is a great service. It's the "Reader's Digest" of Japanese television, the only (legal) way to stay current with the best of scripted television (often rebroadcast within days), live and long-format news, and infotainment from NHK and the major commercial broadcasters in Japan.


But $24.99/month is a ridiculous price for a single channel. By comparison, HBO Now charges $14.99/month. And if you're going à la carte, you've got to fork out at least $25.00/month more for a "basic" package and additional fees. Even Xfinity Instant TV hardly saves you any money at all.

Fifty bucks for the one channel I want. And a couple dozen other channels I don't. Except they have me over a barrel so I just may cave. But I'll be grumbling about it the whole time (and get off my lawn!).

The thing is, we've been down this road before, paying through the nose for stuff we don't want in order to get the stuff we do want.

Let's stop and remember how the music business came up with the "cunning plan" of making its customers pay twenty bucks for the CD of an LP they already owned to get the two tracks they wanted. How did that work out? In the short term, like gangbusters. In the long term, it was a disaster.

According to the RIAA, American record industry revenues declined by two-thirds between 1999 and 2014, from an inflation-adjusted $20.6 billion to under $7 billion. Marc Hogan calculates that, in 2015 dollars, average per-unit album retail prices today are half of what they were in 1977.

It has not taken long for history to repeat itself.

The "bundle" is a plodding dinosaur designed to keep the cash-hungry cable model from going extinct. It's not working. As Luke Bouma reports on Cord Cutters News, in the third quarter of 2018 alone, Dish lost 367,000 subscribers, DirecTV lost 346,000, and Comcast lost 106,000.

While in its third quarter earnings report, Roku announced a 43 percent year-over-year increase in active accounts.

Granted, unless you are willing to rely solely on OTA content (which is a perfectly rational option), you'll need a broadband connection. Though these days, that's like saying you need electricity. Even calculating overpriced internet service into the equation, the savings are hard to ignore.

Compared to TV Japan ($24.99/month), Crunchyroll is $9.99/month ($99.99/year). Funimation is $5.99/month ($59.99/year) and HIDIVE is only $4.99/month ($47.88/year).

Toss in dLibrary Japan, TV Japan's VOD service ($9.99/month), and you'll pay for all four what you would for TV Japan on DirecTV or Xfinity, minus the fees. So about half. For four on-demand channels adding up to tens of thousands of hours of programming.

Not to mention that ad-supported streaming services like Tubi are free. And for Roku owners, so is the Roku Channel. And NHK World is free as a public service. I mean, if you've got to watch ads on a cable or satellite channel, shouldn't it be free too? Like OTA always has been?

In any case, there is no way the average cable subscriber can consume even a fraction of the content in the typical cable package. If "all or nothing" is the only option, maybe "nothing" is the choice we ought to be making. It's a choice more and more "cord cutters" are actively embracing.

Which is no doubt one reason why, going forward, AT&T (which owns DirecTV, HBO Now, and Crunchyroll) plans to favor streaming for content distribution, with CEO John Donovan declaring, "We've launched our last satellite."

Donovan and other AT&T executives said the rampant growth of Internet-delivered video services that bypass satellite and cable networks is so significant that it is now the company's future.

A streaming version of DirecTV will reportedly be less expensive as "there is no need for crews to come to your house and install a dish." Hey, unless those cost-savings simply accrue to DirecTV's bottom line, how about knocking twenty bucks off the price of TV Japan? That'd get my attention.

On the other hand, perhaps this really is a "cunning plan." The argument here is that cable companies make better margins selling Internet service and would rather not be joined at the hip with the content providers. Though if 5G lives up to a fraction of the hype, that's no guarantee either.

Incidentally, Cord Cutters News and Cord Cutter Confidential are two good ways to stay up to date about the state of streaming services.

Related posts

Japanese media update
Streaming Japanese
Family Gekijyo

Labels: crunchyroll, directv, dish, funimation, hidive, hulu, nhk, nhk world, roku, streaming, technology, television, tubi, tv japan

Two years ago, Funimation and Crunchyroll partnered up to cross-license anime streaming rights. A lot has happened since. Crunchyroll was acquired by AT&T (via Warner Media). Sony Pictures purchased Funimation. The joint agreement "ended amicably" in October. Annoyed anime fans will have to purchase two subscriptions for the same content.

At least anime streaming services are reasonably priced. Satellite and cable, not so much. But several new options have emerged, with Xfinity now carrying TV Japan nationwide.

Back in April, TV Japan moved from Dish to DirecTV. Dish handed the slot to Family Gekijyo. Family Gekijyo is Japan's version of channels like MeTV that rerun "classic TV." It's only as good as the shows in rotation. A mixed bag compared even to Family Gekijyo's home network in Japan, the content on Dish is a pale shadow of TV Japan.

If it keeps improving, it might become an attractive addition to (not a substitute for) TV Japan. But after almost a year, I don't see that happening. Mark it down as a lost opportunity.

Though priced the same as TV Japan on DirecTV and Xfinity ($24.99), as an à la carte channel, Family Gekijyo on Dish is the better deal on paper. "International Basic" on Dish is $15.00/month. "Limited Basic" on Xfinity is $20.00/month and "Basic Choice" on DirecTV is $20.99/month.

Which, purely in economic terms, makes TV Japan's exclusive deal with DirecTV (for satellite service) all the more annoying.

TV Japan has its own archive service called "dLibrary Japan" that reruns select programming from its cable/satellite channel. If you already have TV Japan, you will have seen most of the content already. And dLibrary Japan doesn't stream live or almost-live content like sumo tournaments and news.

But at $9.95/month, it might be worth considering if you're not going to subscribe to TV Japan. NHK World carries (English language) news, NHK documentaries, and sumo tournaments (no dramas or non-NHK content) and can be streamed for free.

Speaking of NHK World, the Utah Educational Network now broadcasts NHK World in full on UEN 9.4. KUED 7.2 (PBS) and UEN 9.1 also carry half-hour segments from NHK World in their international news lineups.

Ideally, Family Gekijyo would join TV Japan and NHK World (already free as a public service) in a single Japanese-language package. Alas, that's not going to happen either. So I'll give Family Gekijyo another month or two, stream Crunchyroll, and watch NHK World the old-fashioned way.

Related posts

Streaming Japanese
Family Gekijyo
Sink or stream
Japanese media update (updated)
dLibrary Japan

Labels: anime, crunchyroll, directv, dish, family gekijyo, funimation, japanese tv, nhk, nhk world, roku, sony, streaming, technology, television, tv japan

The program schedule of Family Gekijyo (Dish) is beginning to resemble a shrunken version of Family Gekijyo (Japan), which is basically ION TV. It needs a website and a program guide, and current programming other than news updates and the occasional shogi tournament, but progress is being made.

• Kasoken no Onna (科捜研の女) "Woman of the Science Research Institute" (1999).

Although this Kyoto-based police procedural predates both CSI and Bones, it compares well to both, with Yasuko Sawaguchi as Mariko Sakaki in the Temperance Brennan role and Kouji Naitou as Kaoru Domon in the Booth role. It's been on the air for 17 seasons (201 episodes to date) and still going.

• Abarenbo Shogun (暴れん坊将軍) "Rough Justice Shogun" (1978).

Along with Mito Komon, one the longest-running series in the genre, totaling 831 episodes. Mito Komon ran on TBS and Abarenbo Shogun ran on Asahi TV, but they share the same premise: a high Tokugawa official dons a disguise and mingles among the commoners to bring ne'er-do-wells to justice.

• Rinjo (臨場) "Scene of the Crime" (2009).

A police procedural based on the novel by Hideo Yokoyama. Seiyou Uchino plays forensic pathologist Yoshio Kuraishi in an updated version of Quincy, M.E. This rerun is an actual rerun for me, as I saw the original broadcast of the series on TV Japan. But it's worth watching twice.

• Uchu Senkan Yamato (宇宙戦艦ヤマト) Space Battleship Yamato (1974).

Directed by the legendary Leiji Matsumoto, the influential first series begins with the WWII battleship Yamato getting turned into a starship to save the Earth. A dubbed version was syndicated in the U.S. as Star Blazers. New series and movies are still being made.

The Yamato was the first of Matsumoto's anachronistic spacecraft, which include steam locomotives (Galaxy Express 999) and Spanish galleons (Captain Harlock).

Family Gekijyo is broadcasting an HD remaster but its age shows. Working with what little he's got, Matsumoto tells a compelling story of survival and ingenuity. Imagine that the aliens in Independence Day mostly succeeded. Earth must strike back (as in Ender's Game) before they finish the job.

• Garo: Makai Retsuden (牙狼-魔戒烈伝) "Garo: History of the Makai" (2016).

This time around it's an anthology series. But I'm bored with it and don't watch. Too much of the same thing can run some shows right into the ground. At the rate they're going, that could soon include the whole Family Gekijyo channel too. It still can't hold a candle to TV Japan.

Labels: dish, family gekijyo, japanese tv, matsumoto, television, tv japan

In which I expand my Japanese media options with a Roku.

At minimum, switching from Dish to DirecTV (the new home of TV Japan) would add another ten dollars to the subscription price (at least $46/month plus numerous taxes and fees), on top of a new set-top box ($60) and a 24-month commitment (ugh).

A Roku Express costs less than $30 (no additional taxes or fees) and nobody has to commit to anything. Hey, I'm already saving money! The picture quality on my 720p screen is better than I expected, almost as good as a solid 1080p OTA signal (the gold standard).

Here are a few of the Japan-specific channels available on the platform.

NHK World is a remarkably complete news and information service. Many of the features are original NHK productions with English voice-overs or subtitles, including the all-important highlights during sumo tournaments. Frankly, NHK World alone justifies the cost of the Roku.

Even better, it's a free service, as is the Roku app.

The other big draw for me is Crunchyroll. The annoying ads can be removed for $9.99/month (or $99.99/year), a great deal for the biggest source of anime anywhere. Like Netflix, they use embedded subtitles, which is vastly superior to the closed captions approach.

A free ad-supported Roku channel worth adding is Tubi. It's got a well-stocked anime section, though the quality is all over the map and the search tools are entirely lacking.

The same thing goes for Tubi's surprising number of live-action offerings. which range from art-house films to schlocky tokusatsu series.

Now the sole remaining independent anime service, HIDIVE carries anime and a few live-action exclusives from Sentai Filmworks for $4.99/month. That leaves Funimation as Crunchyroll's only other competitor (Funimation has since acquired Crunchyroll), but for $5.99/month it'd hardly break the bank to get both.

At $9.99/month, dLibrary Japan is a VOD service run by NHK Cosmomedia (also responsible for NHK World and TV Japan). It licenses recent live-action content (some titles can be up to a decade old) for only a year or two, so there's no backlist to speak of. But the catalog is updated on a regular basis.

Most of the movies on dLibrary Japan are subtitled. Fewer of the television series are, and I've noticed an increasing use of machine-translated closed captions (that at times resemble an infinite number of monkeys trying to type Shakespeare).

Netflix is the latest streaming service to discover there simply isn't a big audience for localized Jdrama in North America. On the other hand, I am very impressed with the quality and quantity of the Netflix anime catalog.

That leaves Rakuten Viki as dLibrary Japan's only competitor, though the two services are aimed at quite different audiences, and Rakuten Viki employs an innovative approach to the challenge of subtitling.

Then again, Netflix recently added a kabuki play and a whole suite of filmed theatrical productions that take place during the late Warring States period. I imagine they initially licensed the videos for distribution in Japan and ended up with worldwide rights in the bargain.

Also free on Roku, J1 Radio streams popular Japanese music from the postwar Showa era up to the present.

Related posts

The streaming chronicles (2)
The streaming chronicles (3)
The streaming chronicles (4)
Anime's streaming solution

Labels: crunchyroll, directv, dish, funimation, hidive, japanese tv, jdrama, nhk, nhk cosmomedia, nhk world, roku, streaming, technology, tubi, tv japan, viki

The fourth Garo series concluded last week on Family Gekijyo. The big finale ended up being clumsily censored. For an increasingly campy show that had lost its sense of humor, the cloud of pixelization kicked it into Mystery Science Theater 3000 territory.

The first half of "Flowers of Hell" had a lot going for it, but then they apparently decided they weren't taking themselves seriously enough. Only some things are impossible to take seriously, no matter how stony the faces.

Unlike the earlier "Shiiki" episode, this bare nakedness could hardly be called integral to the plot. It seemed more in the HBO category of "because we found an actress who didn't mind." She started out the episode in a unitard. They could have left her in the unitard. It made no difference.

And given the repetitious mess that is Family Gekijyo, with no rhyme or reason as to when stuff will show up on the screen, and no parental controls, it could annoy people with kids. And annoy members of the old TV Japan audience accustomed to the stodgier NHK programming standards.

Family Gekijyo is a satellite channel in Japan. But perusing their program guide, I see that the occasionally TV-MA Golgo 13 (the adventures of a Japanese hitman) is scheduled at 11:00 PM.

Japan does not have an officially defined "watershed" for broadcasters. That's the time slot in many countries when OTA stations can switch from TV-PG and TV-14 to TV-MA. The latter almost never happens for American broadcasters, as the FCC doesn't provide a TV-MA safe harbor.

So in Japan, as television standards have grown more conservative in the last quarter-century, broadcasters shifted controversial programming to after 10:00 PM. This time slot has been wittily labeled "otaku o'clock" and uses the odd but logical "22:00-27:00" notation.

Aside from a small number of popular and"family-friendly" series that get prime time slots, this is when most anime debut, often as "brokered programming." That means the production committee purchases the entire chunk of air time and sells its own advertising. Like an infomercial.

Even then, more "edgy" anime are often bowdlerized to play it safe and encourage viewers to buy the DVDs in order to get the unedited versions, which is the whole point in the first place. The anime industry in Japan is supported by manga, merchandise, and licensing, not television advertising.

Labels: anime, dish, family gekijyo, japanese tv, nhk, social studies, tv japan

As best I can tell, here are the latest additions to the program schedule.

 • TBS News
 • Sunuko's Falling-Down-Drunk Recipes
 • The Drifters (1977-1997)
 • Shimura's Cram School (2004)
 • Garo: Gold Storm (2015)

Garo: Gold Storm is a sequel to Garo: Yami o Terasu Mono. In other words, more of the same. At this point, I would describe Garo as a Magical Girl series for boys, sans the charm and humor. Even the once clever "Flowers of Hell" forgot how to be funny by the time the big finale rolled around.

If you just can't get enough goth and leather cosplay, this is the show for you. Otherwise, it has a bad case of Big Bad Syndrome and is desperately in need of the Deadpool treatment.

The Drifters started off as a rock band but gained far greater fame as a comedy troupe. They hosted the variety show Hachijidayo! Zen'inshugo! ("It's Eight O'Clock! Everybody Gather 'Round!") from 1969 to 1985, one of the highest-rated shows on Japanese television.

I think Family Gekijyo is showing episodes from the ninety-minute monthly specials that ran from 1977-1997. These were sketch comedy shows with an ensemble cast, comparable to The Carol Burnett Show.

Ken Shimura is a Drifters alumnus. His half-hour program mixes celebrity interviews with comedy skits (known in Japanese as konto, from the French conte).

The problem here is that I didn't watch The Carol Burnett Show. I don't watch the reruns now. I haven't followed a sketch comedy show since Monty Python.

So, not really my thing, and not for ninety minutes a night. Though to be honest, Shimura's Cram School is worth watching simply because Yuuka, Ken Shimura's co-host, is so darn cute.

The Tokyo Broadcasting System is similar to American broadcast networks like NBC and CBS, producing commercial content across the board. TBS still owns its radio system (launched in 1951), runs the Japan News Network (JNN), and operates TBS Newsbird, a 24-hour satellite and cable news channel.

Incidentally, the Family Gekijyo and TBS headquarters are both located in Akasaka, Tokyo, a couple of blocks apart.

The fifteen-minute newscasts aren't all that different from their NHK counterparts. The TBS newscasts are followed by a five-minute cooking show, Sunuko's Falling-Down-Drunk Recipes. As the website explains, "Super-simple recipes you can make even when you're blotto."

Here's today's new vocabulary word: hebereke.

Family Gekijyo on Dish seems to be turning into, well, Family Gekijyo. I originally compared it to ION TV. But ION TV specializes in recent material, often reruns of shows still in production. Family Gekijyo is closer to DTV subchannels like MeTV and COZI TV, preserving the golden oldies.

But the thing about subchannels is that they are subchannels, not the main event. TV Japan tries to keep up to date with a little something for everybody. Family Gekijyo is providing something for somebody, but I'm not sure who that is. As a standalone offering, it's mostly worth watching for the news.

So the question is whether Family Gekijyo can fill in the rest of the schedule with content compelling enough to pay for. I do hope so.

Related posts

Family Gekijyo
Family Gekijyo (weeks 1-2)
Family Gekijyo (weeks 3-4)

Labels: dish, family gekijyo, japanese tv, nhk, television, tv japan

It's Groundhog Day at Family Gekijyo, where every day is the same, except when it is slightly different.

Garo: Yami o Terasu Mono concluded its run and was followed by Garo: Makai no Hana ("Flowers of Hell"). The latter debuted in 2014, with Masei Nakayama as Raiga Saezima, the son of Kouga Saezima from the first series (he grew up fast).

The fourth series returns to established conventions. I didn't see the point of the alternate universe business in Yami o Terasu Mono and the serial format is only good for bingeing. Makai no Hana is more episodic, making non-linear viewing more tolerable.

This series takes place in present-day Tokyo. Imagine that Buffy lived in Wayne Manor and Giles was Alfred. That's sort of what we have here, and it plays to the inherent strengths of the genre: Spirit World Warriors battling evil in the shadows of the "normal."

Japanese urban fantasy is adept at locating magical mayhem in the midst of the modern world. Being a ghostbuster in Japan will keep you busy.

"Flowers of Hell" doesn't constantly take itself too seriously. Masei Nakayama even manages to smile now and then. The Halloween episode (beginning with an old-fashioned credit scroll in English) has him battling villains from popular Hollywood horror movies.

In another episode, a demonic manga artist attacks him with his literally animated illustrations. And then there's the traditional Japanese house that stomps around like out of Howl's Moving Castle.

The episodes follow a similar set-up and resolution, so the most interesting element is the creature-of-the-week, although the little vignettes that play during the closing credit scroll constitute a show of their own.

Up until episode nine ("Shiiku"), I would have rated the series PG-12. But the producers apparently decided it was time to use up their gratuitous nudity quota. The result is better than I expected—imagine an episode of Criminal Minds, with an unreliable narrator.

Or give it the Silence of the Lambs treatment and you could end up with a first-rate psychological thriller or a fantasy horror flick.

I do have to wonder about the casting call: "You'll be naked and mostly dead while Tokio Emoto hauls your body around." Well, not wonder all that much. The Japanese website tags the three as "AV" actresses. Not all that unusual in Japan.

Tokio Emoto plays the serial killer. He's only 28 but qualifies as a "veteran" character actor, with supporting roles in several NHK series as well.

That episode got skipped during the daytime portion of the rerun loop, which is in accordance with how Japanese commercial television works too (granted, no American over-the-air television station would broadcast anything like "Shiiku" at any time ever).

Family Gekijyo is likely showing the third and fourth series because the first two seasons were licensed for North America by Kraken Releasing (née Sentai Filmworks) and are available on Blu-ray. Several of the animated spin-offs are streaming on Crunchyroll.

As for the rest of the programming, it's the same only—no, for now it's more of the same.

 • Garo: Makai no Hana (2014)

But change is coming! According to the news ticker that occasionally appears at the bottom of the screen, a fresh slate of programs is scheduled to begin May 1.

Related posts

Family Gekijyo
Family Gekijyo (weeks 1-2)
Family Gekijyo (weeks 5-6)

Labels: dish, family gekijyo, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, nhk, television

Family Gekijyo, the Japanese channel replacing TV Japan on Dish, didn't have a published program schedule when it launched on April 2 (the on-screen program guide works). After all, there was barely anything to schedule. But something is better than nothing, so let's discuss the something.


The first two weeks, Family Gekijyo (on Dish) ran episodes from a live action urban fantasy series and three "classic" anime series in a "creeping loop." Sunday saw coverage of a shogi tournament. Then back to the loop. Then a rerun of the shogi tournament Sunday afternoon.

Then back to the loop, now with reruns of the shogi tournament filling the late night slot. (By "creeping loop," I mean that every day, each series advances two episodes and loops again.)

Based on what I've seen and what's listed in the on-screen guide, here are the programs for the first two weeks (all half-hour shows except for the shogi tournament):

 • 21st Ginga Shogi Tournament
 • Zerotesters (1973-1974)
 • Reiden the Brave (1975-1976)
 • Beeton the Robot (1976-1977)
 • Garo: Yami o Terasu Mono (2013)

Zerotesters is clunky old space anime. Reiden the Brave is a clunky old mecha anime. Beeton the Robot is the best of the old bunch, a family comedy that's sort of "the same only different enough to keep us from getting sued" version of Doraemon.

Garo: Yami o Terasu Mono (lit. "Wolf Fang: Those who Illuminate the Darkness") is the third installment in the franchise, with a new cast and an "alternate universe" setting.

The special effects are "good enough." The martial arts sequences are impressive. Its biggest fault is taking itself too seriously, like Buffy with no sense of humor. And landing in the loop at random times doesn't make it easy to follow the story.

On the other hand, the episodes I caught three or four times did begin to make sense (that's actually a good way to study a foreign language).

It is not a kid's show. Well, it's a Japanese kid's show. The occasional winsome lass (it's not Game of Thrones either) appears in a Garo episode sans clothing. The "family" in Family Gekijyo is of the commercial variety—as any consumer of "young adult" manga and anime can attest—not the stodgy NHK version.

Even a kid's show like Beeton the Robot did a running gag in one episode that had a Betty Boop lookalike constantly falling out of her clothes (think Benny Hill). Highlighting that "advantage" without getting too crass about it could help differentiate Family Gekijyo from TV Japan.

As for shogi, I know practically nothing about it, so it falls into watching-paint-dry territory. That's true of international chess too. And go. Alas, cerebral spectator sports aren't nearly as interesting in real life as they are in manga and anime. But that's a subject for another post.

I can only hope the rest of Family Gekijyo's prime time slate is indeed "coming soon."

Related posts

Family Gekijyo
Family Gekijyo (weeks 3-4)
Family Gekijyo (weeks 5-6)

Labels: anime, dish, family gekijyo, fantasy, japanese tv, nhk, television, tv japan

A dozen years with TV Japan were rudely interrupted by NHK Cosmomedia America abruptly jumping ship to DirecTV. TV Japan had been on Dish since its debut in 1991. It might have been enticed by the bigger pool of subscribers (twice that of Dish), but I think the switch has as much to do with streaming technology.

TV Japan recently launched a library service (no live streaming) called dLibrary Japan. Streaming is the ideal delivery platform for these niche services. TV Japan only reached 80,000 households at Dish, which may have prompted NHK Cosmomedia to look over the fence and see greener grass at DirecTV and Xfinity.

But Dish did something intriguing too. It handed TV Japan's slot to Family Gekijyo (ファミリー劇場). Meaning "family theater," the kunrei-shiki romanization (ignoring the long final vowel, the more familiar Hepburn renders it gekijo) straightaway tells you it's a Japanese import. As the official press release states:

Tohokushinsha Film Corporation, the Tokyo-headquartered Japanese entertainment and media industry leader, has announced the launch of its popular Japanese channel FAMILY GEKIJYO exclusively on the USA's DISH Network, in collaboration with Superswiss. The launch took place April 2, 2018 at 5:00 pm (MDT).

The press release also mentions Tohokushinsha's intention to delve into OTT services.

As best I can tell, Family Gekijyo (Japan) resembles ION Television: some original programming backfilled by lots of reruns. A handful of NHK series from a few years back are featured on its home page.

TV Japan is a compilation service crafted for Japanese living and traveling abroad. It does a good job of staying on top of the news and current with the top-rated commercial series in Japan. Family Gekijyo is produced in Japan for a home audience. Alas, too bad it just can't time-shift the raw feed and beam it across the Pacific.

According to Dish,

The international version of this popular Japanese channel is being created to offer general entertainment programming, including live action series, anime, documentaries and game shows. Plus, news programming to come!

Parent company Tohokushinsha Film Corporation does bring a sizeable media catalog to the table. Since 1989, "TFC's satellite operations have expanded to a total of 11 channels, and controls every aspect of [its] satellite business, including programming, sales, and transmission infrastructure."

Family Gekijyo certainly has hypothetical access to enough material to fill a 24/7 service. The problem is lining up all those broadcasting rights ducks in an orderly row. As noted above, the "international version" is "being created" as we speak. It was not launched as a finished product.

Far from it. More like "we'll start working on it real soon now." Even without so much as a placeholder website for Dish subscribers, they must have pushed ahead with the roll-out because of the opening created by TV Japan's departure from Dish.

In any case, I'm not eager to leave Dish. DirecTV would cost ten dollars more a month, on top of new equipment and a fresh 24 month commitment. Besides, starting from zero like this, I'm curious to see how it shakes out—as long as something does shake out in a reasonable amount of time.

Related posts

Family Gekijyo (weeks 1-2)
Family Gekijyo (weeks 3-4)
Family Gekijyo (weeks 5-6)

Labels: business, directv, dish, family gekijyo, japanese tv, nhk, nhk cosmomedia, technology, television, tv japan

As Dave Barry would say, it'd make a great name for a band.

A few months after applying Jack Welch's "Rank-and-Yank" model to its anime offerings, Hulu still has a ton of anime in its catalog. But like Netflix and Amazon, Hulu wants to turn itself into HBO, and so has dumped its "free" advertising-sponsored model.

That's not quite the right metaphor. Netflix wants to be HBO. Hulu wants to be Comcast. And with its recent deals with Disney and Fox, it's getting there.

I rather like the Hulu model (aside from it succumbing to the inexplicable compulsion to mess with a perfectly fine interface until it's useless), and I believe that streaming services are the future. I just don't want to pay for all of them. It's the new old periodical paradox.

Hence the attraction of a one-stop shop like Hulu as a DVR-in-the-cloud. It would certainly be cheaper than adding a DVR option to my Dish subscription. And a whole lot cheaper than the typical cable package. I plan on cutting the cord before getting the cord.

I could similarly rationalize signing up for Amazon Prime mostly for the free shipping option.

I've maintained my DVD Netflix subscription for the occasional new movie and old television series I missed. It's DVR-by-mail. (Never underestimate the bandwidth of the regular mail.) I have Dish to get TV Japan, an a la carte subscription.

Speaking of a la carte, Crunchyroll is an all-anime provider (with some Korean offerings). And no ads with a reasonably-priced subscription. The only hitch here is that while there's a lot of overlap, Hulu and Netflix and Amazon and Anime Network still have their own exclusives.

Thankfully, that list of exclusives just became smaller.

Funimation (the biggest anime distributor in the U.S. market) and Crunchyroll realized there was nothing to gain by fragmenting the market further and partnered up. Especially when Amazon and Netflix can dig some change out of the couch cushions and outbid them any day of the week.

In 2015, Netflix spent almost $5 billion on programming, Amazon a little more than half that. CBS spent $5.7 billion on television programming, while the Disney (ABC) and NBC media groups spent $12 and $10 billion respectively. A big chunk of that still goes to scripted shows.

(To give credit where it's due, Netflix is streaming the live-action series Midnight Diner. A live-action series! Hulu abandoned its live-action Japanese series.)

Crunchyroll has 20 million users registered though its "free" portal, and has also done a licensing deal with manga publishing powerhouse Kadokawa, which itself bought a controlling interest in Yen Press and partnered with Hachette.

Crunchyroll is capitalized at less than half a billion (by the Chernin Group and AT&T) and has one percent of Netflix's paid subscriber numbers. It's had to rely on strategic alliances rather than deep pockets, and pours its resources into a single market segment with a die-hard user base.

Funimation will still distribute to the rest. With Crunchroll, Funimation is essentially creating a "factory outlet" with a focus on the die-hard fans. Funimation will concentrate on dubs, Crunchyroll on subs and real-time streaming.

The only remaining problem is walled-garden exclusivity. The bite for me was that Netflix runs out of Hikaru no Go DVDs at episode 45, right in the middle of the big competition. And only Hulu had the whole series.

But all is not lost! Hulu handed its whole "free" ad-driven service to Yahoo. The service is called View. I'd swear they didn't even move it off the Hulu servers, just slapped on the Yahoo logo and updated the DNS addresses.

The Yahoo interface is rudimentary at best. If they've got a queue, I can't find it. But I will say this for Hulu: unlike Crunchyroll, its ad engine was pretty darn good and that's what Yahoo is using (again, Crunchyroll is worth a subscription to get rid of the annoying ads).

If Yahoo is serious about making View work, it could turn itself into the syndicated subchannel of streaming. Not a bad direction for the directionless Yahoo to go. In other words, a streaming channel that consolidates all of your favorite reruns on a single ad-supported site.

The goal, after all, is to wring every last licensing penny out of every last piece of IP. Streaming is probably the best way to do that. All Yahoo has to do now is make its service actually user-friendly. Which I fear may prove to be a bridge too far for Yahoo.

But at least I can watch Hulu exclusives like Matoi on Yahoo View, so we may have the makings of a working solution here for us penny-pinchers.

Related posts

Netflix switch
Sink or stream
The streaming scythe
Anime's streaming solution

Labels: anime, business, computers, dish, funimation, kadokawa, pop culture, streaming, technology, television, tv japan

In what will surely be a case study in a future edition of Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma, Netflix out-innovated and out-marketed Blockbuster--in 2000 it could have acquired Netflix for a paltry $50 million--into bankruptcy.

Dish Networks scooped up the remains, only to dump the brick & mortar stores and the DVD-by-mail rental service two years later, leaving a few dozen franchise-owned stores still in operation.

But then something ironic happened: Netflix so thoroughly followed Clayton Christensen's advice "to kill its own business" that it actually did it.

I have to wonder now if Blockbuster had seen the writing on the wall even a year or two earlier it could have maneuvered itself to occupy the same retail space that Netflix is now abandoning and that Redbox quickly pounced on.

As Matthew Yglesias points out, quoting Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos, Netflix has since set out to "become HBO before HBO became them."

The thing is, I'm not interested in subscribing to "HBOflix." With few exceptions, I don't watch serials dribbled out in weekly installments (cable or broadcast), especially the kind of programming that wins HBO and its kin all that high brow praise.

"Free preview weekends" only make me wonder why people are so willing to pay so much for satellite/cable "premium" content. Though you sure can't argue with the business model, not as long as people are shelling out $200/year to watch one or two shows.

I originally subscribed to Netflix because of its anime library, but it's all but stopped buying anime DVDs and streams only a fraction of those. Dozens of titles are listed in its catalog with no availability listed for streaming or discs.

If you haven't subscribed, you have to use third-party sites to find out what streaming titles are available. As far as anime goes, the results do not impress. Netflix is playing these bait and switch games while it figures out how to keep the licensors at bay.

And keep itself from being throttled out of business.

Deliberately welding itself to the old cable model gives HBO all the bandwidth it needs. Netflix ironically finds itself at the mercy of the same Internet providers who look to HBO as their bread and butter.

Sure enough, according to the Wall Street Journal, Netflix is paying Comcast for preferred access to its networks. Verizon wants a piece of that pie too. If Verizon gets a slice, every ISP in the country is going to want to slap on a cover charge.

But as XKCD illustrates here, the old-fashioned sneakernet has enormous bandwidth. Some of us were happy to put up with the equally enormous ping times, and Redbox has gone about picking all the low-hanging fruit.

There are a handful of companies that specialize in renting anime discs. But without Netflix's next-day distribution network, the sneakernet ping times do become intolerable.

The only options left are buying the discs (I do having a growing library) and getting a Roku. Both Hulu and Crunchyroll keep their anime catalogs well-stocked and up to date. And searching through them doesn't require you to sign up for anything.

With backing from Disney and News Corp., Hulu shouldn't have to worry about getting throttled. For now, though, Amazon and Netflix are outmarketing Hulu, making Netflix's decision to out-HBO HBO perhaps the better business decision.

But not better for the anime consumer. Once I get to the bottom of my current queue, I'll be through with Netflix.

Related posts

Full stream ahead
Netflix flak

Labels: anime, business, crunchyroll, dish, hulu, netflix, streaming, television

Holy cow, the outgassing! The first day or two, that "new electronics smell" seemed to be issuing from a glowing lump of radioactive plastic. But everything worked right out of the box. The stand was easy to attach and solid.

Over-the-air HDTV is simply incredible (especially sports), which makes SD look grungy and programs with screwed-up aspect ratios all the more annoying. It's been four year since the mandated shutdown of full-power analog. You'd think they'd have it figured out by now.

Which brings me to my biggest beef with the Seiki, and it's the software. When you change the aspect ratio on a channel, the Seiki does a poor job remembering it. My old HDTV set-top converter box did a much better job (it also had a better program guide).

My Dish receiver upconverts to 720p but TV Japan SD programming is often so compressed there's not much left to upconvert (though thanks to the unsharp mask, graphics with high contrast edges, like B/W text, display crystal clear). As a result, the SD quality is all over the map.

Digital to analog (component) and back to digital obviously isn't going to work well, at least not with budget equipment (my aging Dish receiver only has DVI). The obvious solution is an upgrade to HD content and a Dish DVR receiver with HDMI. Someday.

As noted in many reviews, the Seiki's sound is lousy. One nice thing about those old CRT TVs was that, even in a cheap set, there was plenty of room to fit in a set of solid speakers. The Seiki's dime-sized speakers are squeezed into the back bezel and sound like a transistor radio circa 1960.

A pair of budget computer speakers (Logitech S120) are filling in for now. Not quite as good as the JVC but they make a huge difference (and the sound of the S120 speakers has actually improved over time; "speaker break-in" is apparently real).

I replaced my jury-rigged dipole with an RCA "flat" passive antenna (ANT1400R). Once I positioned it just right, it picked up the local DTV stations, plus a few analog signals. There are still a handful of "local only" analog TV broadcasters out there. They have until 1 September 2015.

Related posts

HDTV on the cheap
The last picture tube show

Labels: dish, technology, television, tv japan

With my SUPERDish, I get another two dozen free channels in addition to the handful of Asian channels I was already getting, Christian, public access, and shopping networks. And CSPAN and NASA ("Making space exploration as boring as CSPAN!"). Plus the countless PPV sports, porn and movie channels.

The best free channels are Research and UCTV and NASA. (During an actual mission, that is. The Hubble Repair Mission was like This Old House in space. The ISS is boring. What's it supposed to be there for, again?) BYU has a channel too, but it's as dull as CSPAN.

That's not counting the 500+ channels I could choose from with a domestic programming package. It strikes me as a goofy business model that only makes sense if the marginal cost of each new channel is minimal compared to the profit from adding each new paying-through-the-nose customer.

Though a "pure" a la carte system is equally unworkable unless, like TV Japan or the Wall Street Journal, a very specific demand is met by a very specific supply. A la carte plus over-the-air works fine for me.

Mark Cuban says that the Internet can't compete with established broadband delivery networks. I think he's right. On-demand SD television over the Internet would become a bandwidth hog, especially in the local loop (until fiber reaches the home in significant numbers). Forget about HD.

Heretic that I am, I also think ISPs should meter or even block file sharing ports. We're in classic tragedy-of-the-commons territory here. Hey, considering the bandwidth even cheapo web hosting plans allow, if you have to depend on file sharing, then your business is way undercapitalized.

I've never been sold on the next great technology that promises to turn your computer into an "interactive TV." Just because computers and televisions look like each other doesn't mean they are each other. The only thing I want to interact with while watching TV is the remote.

Satellite and cable could implement the on-demand programming using current DVR technology. Basically the Netflix model, but streamed or trickled over unused sidebands. But perhaps people don't want to think even that hard about it. They just want to pick up the remote and watch "whatever's on."

Labels: BYU, dish, netflix, technology, television, tv japan