2011 Holiday
Tsutaya TV Stick
I picked up a Tsutaya HDMI stick, that lets you rent and buy TV/Movies from the large Japanese Tsutaya store.
The stick itself cost 6,000 yen and arrived in a couple of days.
Setup consisted of installing an app called "T-リモコン". Unfortunately it is pretty hard to find unless you can type in Japanese. In the end I used the PC browser to find the Apps. (Both Android and IPad).
To set it all up,
- plug in the HDMI-Stick and power it on (USB Power).
- change ipad/android wifi network to that of the HDMI-Stick
- Run the "T-リモコン" App which will find the HDMI-Stick.
- Change the HDMI-Stick's wifi to your home wifi.
- ipad/android wifi generally switches back to your home wifi, if not, do so.
- use the app to browse content, the TV will show things as well.
Most things have Trailers or Samples you can play.
GOOD THINGS:
- Device works well, movie wall to pick media is nice. Shows on both device and TV
- Playback works quite well. ~5s or so to start up, but playback in nice and crisp.
BAD THINGS:
- 80% of content is in JAPANESE, and ONLY in JAPANESE. Including movies (hobbit etc), and TV shows (Person of Interest)
- Content is pretty much the same as other services. Ie, no Comedy shows.
- Some buffering experienced, but it does recover reasonably.
I find it quite annoying that they would only have dubbed versions of content, when the easiest is to keep original audio, THEN add localised versions later.
I was hoping they would have a bigger collection, including comedy shows since no other services in Japan carries comedy. Including Hikari-TV, Hulu.jp and Sky.