Watching Japanese Television Online

[indy138]

Hey all,

I've been looking for a way to be able to watch Japanese TV ever since I came back from Tokyo and I found a solution a few days ago, it's a website called nihonnamaterebi.com. It's a paying site, but I thought I'd give it a go, since this is the first "proper" solution I've come across.

My 2 days trial is running out tonight, I have 7 channels to watch (HBC, 2xNHK, STV, TVH, UHB and HTB apparently, basically the channels that can be found here).

Setting it up was very easy, it uses SlingPlayer (I've tried both the Mac and Wndows versions); video quality for me is OK, but sometimes it goes down to about YouTube's (probably mostly due to my crappy connection at home).

The site seems to offer a few different packages with different channel setups, and fees. Does anybody else have any experience with it? Maybe with other packages, past the trial?

As well in general, any other methods you guys are aware of that enable watching Japanese TV overseas, through the Internet?

I've found that besides it being entertaining it helps loads with understanding both written as well as spoken Japanese

Cheers,
Attila

[elau1986]

I use a free streaming program that allows me to watch live Japanese TV

message me and I will send you the site to download it if you want

[ChrisClarke]

KeyHoleTV may be worth looking at. It's free, but the channel selection is limited and tends to change in availability quite a bit.

http://xorsyst.com/japan/watch-japanese-tv-online/ - instructions
http://www.v2p.jp/video/ - Official Website (Japanese)
http://www.v2p.jp/video/english/index.html Official Website (English)

Enjoy.

[Taurus]

That looks interesting. I reckon I'll give it a try. My girlfriend gets a lot of Japanese telly sent over to her by friends who record it on to disc for her, but she'd love to be able to watch it live.

[Taurus]

I have given it a try. It's really useful, thanks!

[indy138]

I also gave it a go and it works!

Sound and picture can be very shaky sometimes, but in general it's enough to pick up what's going on and hey, it's free!

Thanks for sharing!

[プチクレア]

Unfortunately, KeyHole TV doesn't work on mac...
I had heard about nihonnnamaterebi.com, but never tried it before. Does any one actually have a subscription to the site ?

[indy138]

I got KeyHole TV running within vmware fusion, but yea, a mac version would be cool.

I only tried the 2 day trial of nihonnamaterebi, the quality is very nice, you have the actual selection of tv channels, that you could watch if you'd live there, but of course it's not free...

[hectique]

There is an application quite similar to KeyHole TV for the Mac available. You might want to check out http://www.livestation.com/. I'm watching TV Tokyo at the moment and it works just fine. You have to create an account at the website though.

[プチクレア]

Hectiqueさん, thank you very much for the link ! It works great !!!

[paulp1988]

i might have to give a few of these a go, my japanese viewing is limited to english cable, so that generally means Takeshi's Castle.... and thats about it

arigato

[Javizy]

Livestation works really well; the quality and reliability of Tokyo TV is excellent. It's pretty much limited to that one channel though, which isn't the best. Can't argue for the price, though.

KeyHoleTV has more channels, and works okay, although the quality is nowhere near as good as Livestation.

I was going to try Nama Terebi, but you weren't joking when you said "not free". ￥9,500 for the basic package I could get a full Sky+ package for that. Even before the pound started going down the drain that would've seemed steep.

[koda_1711]

try this:
http://www.tofugu.com/2008/08/24/how-to ... -for-free/

hope it help.

[MagicToaster]

the one i use the most is aznv.tv it has loads of dramas with english subtitles , but i dont know if new accounds can be made .its been updated or sumthin but I havnt read about it yet.