A look at Sony's Portable TV service for PSP · 2006-04-18 16:10 by Damian, 4 comment(s)
What kind of content is available?
This is constantly changing, but right now the following categories (and subcategories) are available:
Movies (trailers)
Currently contains only free movie trailers, not very interesting
Sports (soccer, golf, baseball, martial arts)
Contains 5 minute summaries of soccer and baseball games (105 yen/$0.9 for 7 days), 10-15 minute golf lessons (around 150 yen for 10 days). Not too interesting either, contains a few free samples.
Music (pop, rock, R&B, dance, jazz, world, soundtrack, karaoke, news, interviews)
Extremely limited offering, 2-3 artists per category at pretty steep prices. Fancy a Madonna video for 105 yen that you can only watch for a week? A one-week Coldplay video for 210 yen? No? Oh, the pop category contains only Madonna videos? Ok, I’ll pass.
Drama (Japanese, Korean, overseas)
Here it starts to get more interesting. This is the Japanese-style drama series, where there are a limited number of episodes (10-20) rather than the endless western-style soap operas. Usually the first episode of a series is available for free to get you hooked. Expect to pay around 189 yen for a 30 minute episode that you can watch for five days.
Anime (lots of different subcategories)
I’m not really an anime watcher, but there are lots available here, like Noein and others. A few full-length movies are also available, Gundam 1 clocks in at 2 hours 19 minutes, a 912 Mb download that you can watch 7 days for 315 yen.
Like the drama series, the first episodes of the various anime series are also free, with other free episodes being rotated around on a daily basis. With some patience you might be able to watch a whole series for free.
Entertainment (variety etc)
Various more or less weird entertainment shows, nothing really interesting here.
Information (interior, pet, fashion)
Like the headline says, various shows about pets, home design and fashion. 105 yen for a 15 minute show about cats? Bring it on! Or not…
Talent (well…)
Suffice it to say that if the previous category targets young housewives, this one has a decidedly male target audience. “Talent” apparently means people with a talent for taking clothes off…
Comedy
Various Japanese stand-up acts and things like that. Rather difficult unless you’re Japanese skills are way up there.
TV (Asahi TV)
Currently only contains a bunch of episodes of a motor-related show (Car Graphic TV) from Asahi TV. 315 yen for a 25 minute episode.
Monthly pack
Lets you watch unlimited episodes of a certain series during a month, at a cost. For instance, for 6,300 yen ($54!) you get a month in which to watch all 40 episodes of a popular Korean drama. Watching them all separately would cost you 12,600 yen, but still not very cheap for something you don’t get to keep.
Final words
Well, as I’ve tried to show with the pictures, the service is pretty easy to use, you can download a clip to watch on the bus pretty quickly. Of course, the great screen of the PSP makes it very well-suited for something like this. However, everything is not great. The content supply is still fairly limited, the only decent categories are Drama and Anime. The music video category is especially sad.
My biggest gripe would be the business model though, the DRM is a lot more restrictive than iTunes, and the content is rather expensive. Japan still has some ways to go here, for instance most iTunes music downloads are 200 yen, which at $1.70 is significantly more than the US. We’ll have to wait and see.
I’d still say that the service is a good step forward despite its shortcomings. With more competition (did I hear iPod PMP) perhaps other business models will emerge.
commenting closed for this article
The DS Lite feels old How to buy from the Japanese iTunes store
Looks to me like this service launched last summer. http://www.so-net.ne.jp/corporation/release/2005/050725.html
— ac 2006-04-20 00:14 #
Yep, it’s been up and running for several months. I’ve clarified the text on this.
— Damian 2006-04-20 16:34 #
A great write up. Thanks.
— Lindsay 2006-04-21 09:57 #
Great article. Too bad P-tv is completely Japanese, it’s a bit hard to navigate your way through it if you’re not that proficient in Japanese. I was wondering, in what directory do the downloaded .MGV files go? 100ANV01 as well or another? I’m trying to cook up my own 480×270 AVC files, I’m curious whether it’d work.
— Erwin 2006-05-21 08:20 #