What carrier do you have in the United States that has Japan TV via satellite (Dish Networks a few channels)? You don't appear to be Japanese. Are you trying to learn Japanese?
How do you know how I appear? Do you have a magic computer?
I have had TVJapan for years with Comcast, and years before that with Dish. BTW, Dish doesn't "have a few channels". They have one Japanese-language channel, and its name is TVJapan.
DirecTV carries mostly English and Spanish since in the United States at the moment these are the dominant languages. Blah blah. Unrelated filler. Yadda yadda.
Thanks for the ethnicity lesson. I'm aware of the demographics of the US, and the International programming choices of D*.
You might want to look at the FTA (free to air) section of this forum and try to get the satellites for Japanese transponders that are free. ...In fact if you travel to Japan, buy the satellite equipment there and bring it back to the US, just declare it, as long as it doesn't decrypt pay tv services, it's legal.
I can see you don't know much about satellite footprints. The Asian FTA satellites are not receivable in North America. (Although, much non-Japanese Asian programming is available on NA FTA satellites) I am quite familiar with FTA, as I own an FTA system with motorized dish. The only Japanese language channel available via FTA in North America is on C-band. Not possible for me.
If you like Japanese very much, move to Japan. If you have Dish they have a great HD DVR they maybe a take over target with AT&T and perhaps they will add or remove some of the lineup.
WTF?
One reason why D is not providing Japanese language is what the previous user has pointed out not enough customer base to be profitable, or cannot sign up new providers due to contract or all good providers are already signed up with E*.
It's profitable enough for E*, as well as the many cable and iptv systems that carry it. No reason it wouldn't be profitable for D*.
Other carriers like Verizon FiOS, Comcast, etc do not offer Japan TV yet, since there are over 150 languages, it would be difficult to offer them all to satisfy those with desires to learn 5 or six languages.
Verizon FIOS and Comcast
do carry TVJapan, as does AT&T U-Verse, which sort of renders your entire argument moot. I see your lack of knowledge of FTA is only equaled by your lack of knowledge knowledge of DBS, Cable, and IPTV programming. And, what does learning a language have to do with anything?
When my wife was still alive we had Japan TV on Dish. It was $30a month just for that one channel. She loved it though so we had to pay. We had it for free on C-band before they went exclusively with Dish.
It's $25 now, and no longer exclusively with Dish. In fact, it's available on C-band again. (Or, that could be NHK World, almost the same thing.) But, I really couldn't get away with a C-band dish on the roof.
Sorry to hear about your wife. My wife couldn't do without TVJapan, as well, even though we also have a Slingbox in Japan, hooked up to a DVR at her mom's house, allowing her to watch all sorts of programming in addition to the NHK programming on TVJapan. (One of those fancy Japanese DVR's that JTN was rambling on about above.)
I suppose if the quality of the soon-to-be-released SlingCatcher is good enough, we won't need TVJapan. Her mom has a fiber ISP, so the upload speed is quite good, usually, enabling excellent PQ. But, the SlingPlayer's max resolution, while looking good on a PC display, would look crappy on a larger TV. I would think the SlingCatcher would offer the same rez as the SlingPlayer, since it's probably in the SlingBox's firmware.
Would you care to tell me how, as it isn't possible from their website? (I already have their English homepage bookmarked. But, thanks for the link anyway.)
Anyway, if anybody gets whiff of any plans by D* to carry TVJapan, or some new Japanese-language channel(s), please post here, or PM me.
Thanks.
