have you seen watchjapantv.com

Have you seen this?

hxxp://www.watchjapantv.com

My Japanese isn't great, but from what I can work out, this company puts the Sony equivalent of a slingbox in a data centre, the customer 'buys' it (although they never see it), and then the box streams Free to Air Japanese TV to your remote location. You can then watch it on your PC or buy a set top box to run it into your TV.

The service is obviously aimed at overseas Japanese, but it sounds great for us gaijin wanting to watch regular Japanese TV for educational and entertainment purposes. It is a bit pricey though.

A couple of things that I don't understand that some of you with advanced Japanese might be able to figure out:

1. Is it true that you have to buy the base station, but as that stays in Japan, you never actually 'own' it.

2. Do they actually have to send you any equipment at all if you go for the PC solution?

3. Do they block any content? For instance, if an MLB baseball game is on NHK1, for which the rights to show overseas will be restricted by the US rights holder

I've applied for the 24 hour trial, but it doesn't start until tuesday for some reason.

cheers

rev