Post by VxJasonxV on Jan 2, 2009 14:14:56 GMT -5
A lot of people are fiending for a way to watch Pro Sportsman tonight (tomorrow, technically).
We already know the primary way for free, KeyholeTV, and it looks like Livestation might be working again?
At any rate, I thought I'd mention an alternative to people should they be looking for a premium Japanese TV provider from outside Japan.
There's this service called JNet. It's awesome, but expensive (pretty much as expensive as Cable).
Copying and pasting this from an e-mail I sent Elsie yesterday:
It is a monthly service that allows you to watch a handful of channels at any time, live, and/or download their shows after they air.
One region (Kantou or Kansai) costs about $40 per month (3600 yen). Both of them costs 5000 yen (about $55) per month.
Here's the channel lineup:
Kantou: NTV, TBS TV and Fuji TV, TV Asahi
Kansai: MBS Mainitihousou, ABC Television, Kansai, Yomiuri TV
As you can see, Kantou is the infinitely more interesting region (or "area") to subscribe too for us
.
The rub is that you have to use a Windows program to create an account, then go through the rest of the ropes of signing up online.
They do this in order to prevent you from signing up more than once (trial account scamming, essentially).
There's something of a 3 day trial period or something like that, but you still have to put in your credit card information in order to start it (go figure).
Should you decide to dive headfirst into this (which I personally don't suggest unless you understand Japanese and wanted something like this already), just make sure that you DO NOT go to jnet.ne.jp , go to us.jnet.ne.jp, those two pages will look just about identical, but the difference is in the registration utility you download, and of course the FAQ with prices/channel lineups.
us.jnet turns a few channels (NHK General, NHK Educational, etc.) into optional/premium channels, but also is accurate to the costs and details I'm providing.
Note that going to us.jnet.ne.jp does NOT mean that you will have en English interface. Again, this is meant for Japanese Foreign Nationals living outside of Japan, or generally individuals that understand Japanese.
Note that I'm neither of those, but I'm getting a lot of help from individuals and I've pretty much figured my way around as a whole.
The fact that so many service details are in images, means that people who don't exactly understand Japanese will miss some pretty important details. (Because you can't run an image through a translator.)
Like I think I mentioned.. JNet is where I got SASUKE20 and SASUKE21. VERY good quality WMV files, and good quality live streaming. It beats the pants off of KeyholeTV, for sure.
I'm already on my trial for JNet, so I'll be using it to watch pro sportsman, as well as downloading it afterwards. Depending on how well everything goes, I'll likely pay for it and find some new TV shows to tune into. (Like... SASUKE22 in another couple months... but some more shows before then, of course).
I need to find someone who actually knows what's remotely interesting out there to watch.
If you didn't pick up to these details already, Windows is just about required for almost all of the features of JNet. And yes, VMWare/Parallels/VirtualBox will work. I was watching Live TV last night in my Virtual Machine of Windows XP.
If you don't have Windows, but can find a way to signup, you can still download videos after they air. Best I know, there's no WMV stream receiver utility for Mac/Linux and generally alternative browsers.
If I'm wrong, please feel free to let me know. I personally would love to use this service straight on my mac than jump through VMWare hoops.
I think I've covered everything important to start with. Any questions?
We already know the primary way for free, KeyholeTV, and it looks like Livestation might be working again?
At any rate, I thought I'd mention an alternative to people should they be looking for a premium Japanese TV provider from outside Japan.
There's this service called JNet. It's awesome, but expensive (pretty much as expensive as Cable).
Copying and pasting this from an e-mail I sent Elsie yesterday:
It is a monthly service that allows you to watch a handful of channels at any time, live, and/or download their shows after they air.
One region (Kantou or Kansai) costs about $40 per month (3600 yen). Both of them costs 5000 yen (about $55) per month.
Here's the channel lineup:
Kantou: NTV, TBS TV and Fuji TV, TV Asahi
Kansai: MBS Mainitihousou, ABC Television, Kansai, Yomiuri TV
As you can see, Kantou is the infinitely more interesting region (or "area") to subscribe too for us
.The rub is that you have to use a Windows program to create an account, then go through the rest of the ropes of signing up online.
They do this in order to prevent you from signing up more than once (trial account scamming, essentially).
There's something of a 3 day trial period or something like that, but you still have to put in your credit card information in order to start it (go figure).
Should you decide to dive headfirst into this (which I personally don't suggest unless you understand Japanese and wanted something like this already), just make sure that you DO NOT go to jnet.ne.jp , go to us.jnet.ne.jp, those two pages will look just about identical, but the difference is in the registration utility you download, and of course the FAQ with prices/channel lineups.
us.jnet turns a few channels (NHK General, NHK Educational, etc.) into optional/premium channels, but also is accurate to the costs and details I'm providing.
Note that going to us.jnet.ne.jp does NOT mean that you will have en English interface. Again, this is meant for Japanese Foreign Nationals living outside of Japan, or generally individuals that understand Japanese.
Note that I'm neither of those, but I'm getting a lot of help from individuals and I've pretty much figured my way around as a whole.
The fact that so many service details are in images, means that people who don't exactly understand Japanese will miss some pretty important details. (Because you can't run an image through a translator.)
Like I think I mentioned.. JNet is where I got SASUKE20 and SASUKE21. VERY good quality WMV files, and good quality live streaming. It beats the pants off of KeyholeTV, for sure.
I'm already on my trial for JNet, so I'll be using it to watch pro sportsman, as well as downloading it afterwards. Depending on how well everything goes, I'll likely pay for it and find some new TV shows to tune into
. (Like... SASUKE22 in another couple months... but some more shows before then, of course).I need to find someone who actually knows what's remotely interesting out there to watch.
If you didn't pick up to these details already, Windows is just about required for almost all of the features of JNet. And yes, VMWare/Parallels/VirtualBox will work. I was watching Live TV last night in my Virtual Machine of Windows XP.
If you don't have Windows, but can find a way to signup, you can still download videos after they air. Best I know, there's no WMV stream receiver utility for Mac/Linux and generally alternative browsers.
If I'm wrong, please feel free to let me know. I personally would love to use this service straight on my mac than jump through VMWare hoops.
I think I've covered everything important to start with. Any questions?
