Japan's 1Seg: Digital TV on PC

(tags television, Japan, PC, hardware)

While in Akihabara, my partner in crime Mr. Alvin showed up and took me on a whirlwind tour of his playground: the PC hardware stores. The target: a USB 2.0 digital TV tuner for the new 1Seg (ワンセグ), which is Japan's free digital television broadcast format, mainly for mobile devices. Unfortunately the desired tuner was sold out all over. After scoping more stores than I could count (and my mental map of Akiba turned inside out), we finally found found one copy, his copy. As we were exiting that store, we overheard some other d00ds saying "it's gone!" Ha.

Lucky for me, he let me borrow it for evaluation. I'm probably one of last ones to jump onto digital TV, so I don't know diddly. Plus I don't watch much Japanese television, if any. Probably I've clocked more minutes watching Japanese swiped shows on YouTube than through my analog TV in the last year.

The above picture is a sample of the quality and service: near QVGA size images, channels and TV program names available for checking, subtitling. With this software for this particular tuner, you can record videos for timeshifting. Maybe I'm not with the times, but this is pretty cool. Unforutunately, it sounds like there's some pretty hard DRM on this thing. The USB tuner doubles as a hardware dongle, etc. Oh well.

Acutally, from my apartment, I have no problem getting the 8 channels shown above. I had to put the extra antenna at a high location (the top of my rack), but didn't have to go outside with it. Unfortunately for Mr. Alvin, he couldn't use it in his room or veranda. But he could get Nana Mizuki (水樹奈々) on the first try with a better antenna. Some guys have all the luck.

I had the idea of watching more Japanese TV so I could improve my Japanese listening and vocabulary. I have been listening to too many animes and game dialogs. This 1seg may be in my shopping basket before long, if I don't tire out watching Japanese commercials. Boy they are strange and entertaining.