TVJapan

[Tampa8]

I didn't see it in any of the freeview places (maybe I missed it) but TVJapan in in freeview till the 31st. The HD on that channel is very good.
(Note - only available on the 118 sat, no International subscription required)

 

[orlyPR]

Thanks.

 

[DishSubLA]

Stumbled on it a few days ago. Agree. Great HD and decent content.

 

[salyavin]

The quality of TV Japan on Dish is why I selected Dish over cable. It is our hosehold's most important channel.

 

[Tampa8]

I don't speak Japanese but some programs are available in English,(Some news for example) some you don't need to understand the language. I like the amateur singing show on Sundays. I originally got the 118 satellite primarily for TVJapan and EuroNews, since then however I have the International news/entertainment pack.

 

[salyavin]

Cool, we are Japanese speakers so it's interesting to see what you enjoy. I have heard on another thread that if you set your hopper to Japanese you will (against intiution) get English soundtrack on the news and sumo if you are watching it live (as opposed to DVR recording). The occasional movie and drama is subtitled in English. One Piece and the Sat. broadcast of the "samurai" drama are subtitled. If one is interested in mainly anime I would suggest using something like crunchyroll which has it all translated for you.
I love TVJapan but I do wish things were such we could have multiple Japanese channels, that is nothing to do with Dish but I do envy how other languages are able to get multiple channels.

 

[Tampa8]

Yes, on the VIP series also changing audio to Japaneses will get the English translation if there is one.

 

[DishSubLA]

I've really enjoyed Cool Japan (I think it is named) because it focuses on Japanese culture and features foreigners in Japan and their views and participation. Even 72 Hours can be interesting. Of course, the high quality HD makes everything more compelling.

 

[orlyPR]

I've really enjoyed Cool Japan (I think it is named) because it focuses on Japanese culture and features foreigners in Japan and their views and participation. Even 72 Hours can be interesting. Of course, the high quality HD makes everything more compelling.

Cool Japan is free in NHK World channel @ 58 band-C. The NHK World channel is alway free in band-C is like TV-Japan without movies and anime.

 

[GaryPen]

To my eyes, the HD quality on TVJ is superior to the regular Dish HD channels. Is there a way to examine the actual resolution and bitrate to compare?

 

[TheKrell]

You should be able to move the program onto an EHD and examine it's size there...

 

[GaryPen]

You should be able to move the program onto an EHD and examine it's size there...

Is that viewable on a PC? I thought they used an incompatible format.

 

[TheKrell]

Is that viewable on a PC? I thought they used an incompatible format.

Not after they're moved to an EHD. I suppose you could view their size on the EHD connected to a computer, but you would have to get ext3 file systems going in order to do that, find out which specific program folder to size, and take a guess at how much extra info is there (if any) due to the transport stream encryption. IMHO that's too much trouble for this small task. I was simply talking about viewing program sizes while on the EHD from the receiver. If you can look at sizes while the programs are on the internal disk from the receiver, you know something that I do not.

 

[GaryPen]

Not after they're moved to an EHD. I suppose you could view their size on the EHD connected to a computer, but you would have to get ext3 file systems going in order to do that, find out which specific program folder to size, and take a guess at how much extra info is there (if any) due to the transport stream encryption. IMHO that's too much trouble for this small task. I was simply talking about viewing program sizes while on the EHD from the receiver. If you can look at sizes while the programs are on the internal disk from the receiver, you know something that I do not.

Without connecting to a PC, how does one view the size of a program file on tan EHD? (It's been a while since I had an EHD hooked up. I've only used them for transfering shows to replacement DVR's, as well.)

 

[Tampa8]

When a program is on the EHD it tells you how many bites it is using of the EHD. Two same length shows will not take up the exact same amount of space, but should in the neighborhood of each other. If the TVJapan show uses far more bites it would indicate more resolution. This does not work for comparing OTA to Satellite, different decoding methods.

 

[GaryPen]

When a program is on the EHD it tells you how many bites it is using of the EHD. Two same length shows will not take up the exact same amount of space, but should in the neighborhood of each other. If the TVJapan show uses far more bites it would indicate more resolution. This does not work for comparing OTA to Satellite, different decoding methods.

I never noticed that during the extremely brief times I used an EHD. And, with the size of the Hopper's HDD, it's unlikely I'll use one again.
But, maybe I'll hook one up just to check file sizes of same-length shows from TVJ and other channels.

 

[papita]

The quality is very high because it is less compressed than the regular HD channels. I do not know why but all HD channels on 118.7 use QPSK compression while the regular HD channels on other satellites us 8PSK compression. 8PSK higher compression rate = lesser quality.

 

[Jim S.]

Dish may indeed compress the channels on the 8PSK transponders more, but that's not the reason. PSK is a modulation system, not a compression system. 8PSK can in fact carry more bits in a given amount of bandwidth than QPSK. But having gained enough bit-rate to add more channels without degrading the quality to a ridiculous level, Dish of course got greedy...

 

[Tampa8]

Or out of necessity more than greed to have as many channels in HD as they have.
To add to the conversation to my eyes HBO looks better than the other channels, on par with TVJapan.