Hey all,

I'm signed up for wist.tv which is a service that has live streams of Japanese TV to my computer. I just got an email from them, and it seems like they're having some free trial service again. They did this last year too -- I tried it out and just decided to keep the service.

Here's the details/sign up

They have special software to watch the streams, but I don't like it; I've posted elsewhere in the forums of how to open the streams in VLC or any other program that supports mms feeds.

$30/mo kinda pricey; but you've got about a week to try it out and see if it's worth it for you.



no, i don't get any benefits for referring anyone. but i think it's a pretty decent service, and thought someone might like to check it out

I use this service as well... My wife loves as much as I do.

Can one of you clarify what TV it streams. I see no mention of what TV channels they are streaming. It seems fairly vague.

I'm using NTKTV at the moment which is even -more- pricey, but as best I can tell, wist.tv cannot be recorded if you use a 64 bit operating system (well, not within the computer anyway, I'm sure I could rig something up, but currently my computer isn't hooked up to any a/v equipment.)

If you actually -can- record properly and everything else on Windows 7-64bit, let me know. If it's really just an MMS stream then maybe I can get third party software to do what I want, and get better quality and save myself money at the same time.

Currently I can watch any program aired in the past week and save any program I watch by simply moving the file out of the temp directory... that's a lot of ease and flexibility for me compared to wist, but they are non-hd streams. And expensive.

(On the other hand, you get NHK-E for free, if you want to watch educational programming at all. Of course, 75% of every day is kids programming, but there's programs for adults in the evening.)

Maybe I'll just try it out tomorrow and see what I can make it do if I can get it free for a week, too late to try tonight.

vix86 Wrote:Can one of you clarify what TV it streams. I see no mention of what TV channels they are streaming. It seems fairly vague.

Here's a copy/paste from the channel selection screen:
CH1 ＮＨＫ総合
CH2 ＮＨＫ教育
CH4 日本テレビ
CH6 ＴＢＳテレビ
CH8 フジテレビ
CH5 テレビ朝日
CH7 テレビ東京

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:If you actually -can- record properly and everything else on Windows 7-64bit, let me know. If it's really just an MMS stream then maybe I can get third party software to do what I want, and get better quality and save myself money at the same time.

You definitely can. I've used it on my 64-bit Windows 7 machine at work using VLC, but really anything that plays MMS streams will work.

1. How to get at the underlying MMS Stream
2. Here's some info about quality from when I first signed up (with a screenshot)
3. Sample that I saved back in July. (Default VLC saving settings. Audio is about 1/4 second off for some reason?)

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Currently I can watch any program aired in the past week and save any program I watch by simply moving the file out of the temp directory... that's a lot of ease and flexibility for me compared to wist, but they are non-hd streams. And expensive.

I don't know where you get the idea that wist is hd? It's definitely not.

I just downloaded the NTKTV thing, and the quality seems to be about the same.
The flexibility is AWESOME though! The fact that I can choose any hour from the past 10 days or so -- this is so cool!

So, NTKTV - $50+ a month, awesome flexibility
Wist.tv - $30/mo, not so much; unless you make something that does what you want.

You have 17 Japanese channels here for free:

http://wwitv.com/tv_channels/8087.htm

It's a crappy feed, but I am not fluent yet, so I
don't care.

Odoroku TV is, as you'll see, a bit surprising!

Yeah, I've checked out the wwitv thing, and it's interesting, but it's not the same content as terrestrial or cable broadcasts in Japan, so if you're interested in following up on an ad or a comment and checking out a particular show, eh.

Maybe I just wasn't patient enough with searching out the timetables and whatever, but the content I found on it was sorta lacking.

The quality on the feed isn't that bad, about the same as standard TV.