MeLe A2000

Hikari TV ひかりTV

After going through the typical/annoying Japanese signup protocol of;

1. calling, handing over name and address
2. they send you a form, so that you write name and address
3. so they can give you the service

I got the tuner in the mail ok, as well as the "setup number". There was also a NTT flets COP code I needed, so I called NTT to get that.

Lots of channels, and the tuner is all in Japanese, but pretty easy to navigate. As always, it is a little sluggish when using the GUI, changing channels and so on. About the same as the satellite and cable STBs I have used before. One would hope they'd made it faster over the years though.

These are things I want to find an answer for:

• Hackable? Can I get in, if so, can I add English myself? only port 20000 open so far. (upnp?)
• Quick channel list. I want a fast way to get to a more scrollable channel list. Right now you either get full guide (slow) or large icons (slow), or deep in the menus (slow)
• Quick channels, can I set my preferred channels on the number keys, and quick jump? Looks like I can, but it sure don't work.
• Output is 1080i, why not 1080p.
• Can I get it to work with XBMC and remove tuner? (IPV6 etc)

Mini review

I have used the service for a little bit now. I did not really understand the difference in the two packages you sign up for;

• TV: This is the equivalent of SkyPerfect satellite, or cable. You get the channels, and can watch them when your program is on. EPG guides, and scheduled recording.
• Video: This is the OnDemand service, where you look around to find something to watch, then just watch it. Whole seasons are usually available.

You can also "connect" your tuner with the HikariTV web page, and view EPG guides on the computer to schedule recordings of shows, as well as, searching for shows. That is worth doing, as shifting through guides, on the tuner itself, is slow and tedious.

Some shows will not have English. This is very strange. For example, BBC's "Sherlock" Season 1 has both subbed and dubbed. But the Season 2 one-week special only had dubbed version. It is really a crime to do that.

For some reason, Comedy shows appear completely absent from the Video service. One would expect at least something like Friends, My Name is Earl, Community, Big Bang Theory, Scrubs, The Office. And I don't mean *specifically* those shows, but any 30mins comedy shows just does not exist.

Everything TV is sorted under Drama. Be it Bones, CSI, Fringe, 24, Dexter... All Drama. I guess since there is no Comedy genre.

I have no issues with it being over my Internet connection. But I do tend to turn off the tuner when I am not watching tv, as I am aware it is using the network.

I am happy to stay with this service for the time being. However, I will be looking for a better STB. If something faster (CPU), or in English, or even XBMC support, becomes available it will be worth exploring.

Networking

I had a fair bit of trouble getting HikariTV to work well. It would sometimes start glitching like crazy, I thought it was the wifi router, or maybe the two switches connected in chain.

But eventually it turns out the be the Win7 PC going into hibernation (sleep). The switch appears to think it still should get multicast packets (wake on lan is on) and something goes weird there. Shutdown has no side effects.

NEC Aterm WR9500N

I picked up an Aterm WR9500N Wifi router. Fairly easy to setup, defaults were all good. Testing HikariTV with this router now.

Buffalo

I signed up for HikariTV recently, to see what that is like to use. I went for the "double" tuner rental.

Initially I was using an old Buffalo G54 wifi router. It could technically handle it, but all wifi communication stopped when watching tv.

I went and picked up a WZR-450HP. You have to enable the "Movie engine" and then IPV6 option. Then HikariTV worked.

However, I noticed you could only watch for 2-3 minutes, then channels would go blocky, corrupt and generally be unplayable. Some channels did not play at all.

It turns out that you can set the "multicast rate", for which the default is "11 mbps", on the Buffalo WIFI router.

However, with HD channels, it is sending at about 8-16mbps. I changed the "multicast rate" to 22mbps and it is currently working well.