Video Stream - Availability

[Mark.Buckton 68]

"Hi everyone, my family has requested that I ask for donations one last time. This will go towards any legal fees I might have to pay for in the future."

(link removed)

Does anyone really think the NSK would be worth approaching with this now out there on FB?

[umbriel2 13]

In desperation I digged in the jungle of the net and found the following temporary solution:

http://www.myniji.tv/

You have to download the software, register with email address, user name and password, activate the registration code and after activation log in with email address and password. Now you can watch several Japanese streaming TV's, among others NHK. Here in Hungary picture quality acceptable but little sluggish, however you can listen Japanese commentator and watch replays. Better than nothing.

[kedevash 43]

What is the best way to put Sumo in the shadow of others sports. By doing what they just have done.

I'm really down right now. Hope some solution will be find to continue watching. Thanks to Araibara for all he has done !

[oliver 11]

what do people think would be a reasonable price? it's a long shot but if the international sumo community could come to a consensus target price and petition the JSA on that basis, perhaps it might have more impact than simply complaining that it's too high.

I'd personally pay at most about £1 / $1.50 per day for live stream plus a Moti-style highlights package - £15 / $22.50 per basho.

[kuroimori 1,634]

120 $ would be ok for a year pass (all 6 basho from maezumo to sanyaku)

20-25 $ for a basho

2 $ per day

but purchase should include a full archive of ALL matches and further extra content such as commentary should be established gradually. I want to see that those revenues are somehow used for improving this service not being used to fill the pockets of the NSK.

[Morty 1,483]

what do people think would be a reasonable price? it's a long shot but if the international sumo community could come to a consensus target price and petition the JSA on that basis, perhaps it might have more impact than simply complaining that it's too high.

I'd personally pay at most about £1 / $1.50 per day for live stream plus a Moti-style highlights package - £15 / $22.50 per basho.

I'd go for that but I'd want a much better quality stream than the one they provide.

[botev1921 33]

I would never pay for stream-quality, which might not even run well (depending on the connection). I would pay for HD quality videos, even if they are uploaded right after the last bout! Reasonable price would be 10-20 Euro per basho.

[Manekineko 200]

I made a poll that'll (hopefully) make our collective opinions easier to express. Here it is.

[Gernobono 463]

what do people think would be a reasonable price? it's a long shot but if the international sumo community could come to a consensus target price and petition the JSA on that basis, perhaps it might have more impact than simply complaining that it's too high.

I'd personally pay at most about £1 / $1.50 per day for live stream plus a Moti-style highlights package - £15 / $22.50 per basho.

I'd go for that but I'd want a much better quality stream than the one they provide.

interersting...why a better quality?

the main reason to watch the stream is to see how a rikishi beats the other one.......and hd-quality does not make it more obvious.......

i am watching the stream on my pc in a non-fullsreen-window and i would not know what hd can do for me to see the outcome of the bouts and the bouts itself

somtimes i watch it on the bigscreen-tv and the quality is ok to see whats going on .......and that is what i am expecting....

btw:kuroimis price-suggestions would be ok for me.....

[Asashosakari 18,973]

The (free) stream quality on Ustream was okay in the lower divisions with the stationary camera, but once they started actually moving it for the sekitori matches, the quality always fell off a cliff. I suspect the bitrate isn't that bad actually, but the codec settings they use appear to be completely wrong for fast motion video. Nowhere else I've seen H264-encoded video that looked worse at the same bitrate than the same material encoded in WMV9 (the old Akamai-hosted stream), but somehow Ustream has managed it. That's just simple laziness. Maybe the pay stream this basho is better, I dunno.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Asashosakari

[torquato 1,075]

New here but fyi Oosunaarashi just tweeted support for Araibira. He had been posting links to his matches as provided by Arabira via twitter. Nice to see some love despite it being from a young foreigner.

@Oosunaarashi: No meaning for #sumo without @araibira .

Couginishiki

And a tweet later informing about the result of his bout he went on: "Sorry there will be no videos anymore .. Many thanks to my friend Araibira ."

Edited January 16, 2014 by torquato

[Jakusotsu 5,874]

I wonder if talk like this could get him into trouble, openly sympathizing with something his bosses strive to eradicate.

[Pandaazuma 1,310]

A Japanese friend sent me this...I'm too dead to translate it...need some kip...but maybe someone else could summarize the gist. The friend (not the source I mentioned earlier) says that this article says UStream might only be a one-basho trial if it's not popular or something. I've not had time to read it, but it might be relevant. Take a look:

http://toda.sg/online/sumo-on-ustream/

大相撲がUstreamで全世界に向けて有料配信を開始

日本の国技である相撲。その大相撲の全取り組みをインターネット動画配信サービス「Ustream」で全世界に向けてネット配信することを発表した。

視聴には日本相撲協会公式Ustreamチャンネルが発売するチケットコードが必要で、1場所15日間閲覧可能なチケットは120ドル、1日チケットが10ドルで、千秋楽は表彰式などもあるためか1日チケットが15ドルになっている。

動画は序ノ口から幕内までの全取組と弓取り式までを含めた内容だということで相撲ファンにはありがたいかもしれないが、日本円で１日チケットが１０００円以上(1/15時点で1米ドル104円)、シーズンチケットが1万5千円以上というのは、両国国技館に生を見に行っても同日自由席券が2,100円であることを考えると、相撲を見たくても見れない人の足元を見た値付けになっていると言わざるを得ない。

配信日時は2014年1月12日～1月26日までで、今のところ大相撲一月場所に限定した有料サービスのようで、以降の場所については言及されていない。インターネット放送だから閲覧してくれるユーザーの対象は、外国の相撲ファンか、海外に移住している日本人になるのでしょうが、彼らの課金ポテンシャルを今回のUstream放送で判断するという実験的を要素も含んでいると思われる。

ちなみに海外からの大相撲の閲覧は、NHKが行っている「NHKワールド プレミアム」で世界中の約１００の国と地域で見ることができるので、日本人の立場からすると、Usreamで放送する意味があまり感じられない。

Ustreamとは

2007年にアメリカで誕生したインターネット通信を利用した動画配信サービス。ブロードキャスト通信を利用した動画のリアル配信やアーカイブ配信が可能なサービス。

[Mark.Buckton 68]

I wonder if talk like this could get him into trouble, openly sympathizing with something his bosses strive to eradicate.

...

[Pandaazuma 1,310]

Also, had a glance at Kuroyama's comment dismissing my source's info as nonsense. I'm very sorry but there are complexities to this situation that you're not aware of, and I'm afraid I can't explain more as the source asked me not to say anything that might identify them (and explaining this might do that). It is not as simple as you like to make it out. Cheers...and good night!

[Akinomaki 40,053]

A Japanese friend sent me this...I'm too dead to translate it...need some kip...but maybe someone else could summarize the gist. The friend (not the source I mentioned earlier) says that this article says UStream might only be a one-basho trial if it's not popular or something. I've not had time to read it, but it might be relevant. Take a look:

http://toda.sg/online/sumo-on-ustream/

Just the known facts, + opinion:

- the thing is also an experiment to see how much the fans are willing to pay

- it is seen as exploiting the situation of fans longing to see sumo but can't otherwise

- not meaningful for Japanese, because NHK Premium provides world-wide coverage

- just no reference to (conditions for) future basho yet – that doesn't mean that Ustream is a trial

[kuroimori 1,634]

New here but fyi Oosunaarashi just tweeted support for Araibira. He had been posting links to his matches as provided by Arabira via twitter. Nice to see some love despite it being from a young foreigner.@Oosunaarashi: No meaning for #sumo without @araibira .Couginishiki

And a tweet later informing about the result of his bout he went on: "Sorry there will be no videos anymore .. Many thanks to my friend Araibira ."

but in the meantime he managed to find a new video link in the abyss of the web for his daily fb entry :-)

[kuroimori 1,634]

NSK's fb page rating change:

Jan 15: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Jan. 16: 3.0 out of 5 stars

Keep it comin' y'all, show them your love!

[Akinomaki 40,053]

To improve chances of having this nightmare to end next basho, maybe an option is to flood the supervisor of the NSK with a petition of complaint against them:

saying they are destroying the hard work of the volunteer sumo fans (us), doing their best to spread in the world the love for this important aspect of Japanese culture, introducing the ordinary potential tourist to Japan to many aspects of the kokugi sumo (kokugi means, it mustn't be handled like a simple sports broadcast).

We have to stress that for this we need to be able to tell them: just look at this, this is sumo and Japan as it is now – and all you need to know to understand all of it is provided by us (of course we can't mention what we do/did with the stream, because we had no right to do that anyway).

So far it was possible, the NSK has fulfilled their responsibility as the guardian of this aspect of Japanese culture, anybody could see how sumo was like, but now the greed of the NSK has put an end to it.

They did this in spite of the fact that all institutions (especially the public interest ones) of Japan, after getting the Tokyo Olympics should strive to give as many insights into the culture as possible.

It struck me though that this move by the NSK could mean they'll lose their public interest status after all and turn into a private corporation, no longer under the supervision of the Mombusho.

[yorikiried by fate 2,001]

Ok, so I think we can all officially agree that our powder is now wet.

Which is too bad. I echo ALL of the sentiments as listed above, and the tone of my original post, all the way up there, stands as written.

Screw'em. Just on principle alone.

At least I won't have to get up at 3:00 a.m. to catch the action anymore.

...............................................

So, waddya want to do now? Anyone bring cards? Monopoly? Scrabble? Netflix?

I've got about 2500 board games waiting to be played. You're all invited to visit Belgium. :-P

You do? (Scratching chin...) Please take care to post your exact address and the times you are planning to go for a longer vacation...

[Bugman 384]

Ok, so I think we can all officially agree that our powder is now wet.

Which is too bad. I echo ALL of the sentiments as listed above, and the tone of my original post, all the way up there, stands as written.

Screw'em. Just on principle alone.

At least I won't have to get up at 3:00 a.m. to catch the action anymore.

...............................................

So, waddya want to do now? Anyone bring cards? Monopoly? Scrabble? Netflix?

I've got about 2500 board games waiting to be played. You're all invited to visit Belgium. :-P

You do? (Scratching chin...) Please take care to post your exact address and the times you are planning to go for a longer vacation...

lol (Laughing...)

[Kuroyama 715]

Also, had a glance at Kuroyama's comment dismissing my source's info as nonsense. I'm very sorry but there are complexities to this situation that you're not aware of, and I'm afraid I can't explain more as the source asked me not to say anything that might identify them (and explaining this might do that). It is not as simple as you like to make it out. Cheers...and good night!

There are no complexities, if the issue is getting YouTube to take down videos. If the issue is that it's been controversial within the NSK whether or not araibira's channel should be shut down, that's not "the Kyokai... trying to get the videos taken down", that's the Kyokai trying to decide whether or not they should do it at all.

So perhaps what you said wasn't exactly what you meant.

[torquato 1,075]

In desperation I digged in the jungle of the net and found the following temporary solution:

http://www.myniji.tv/

You have to download the software, register with email address, user name and password, activate the registration code and after activation log in with email address and password. Now you can watch several Japanese streaming TV's, among others NHK. Here in Hungary picture quality acceptable but little sluggish, however you can listen Japanese commentator and watch replays. Better than nothing.

Wow. That's great. Thank you.

Regardless of sumo, for a long time now I was looking for a possibility to watch Japanese TV streams, but couldn't find anything. This works. Brilliant. Aspect ratio is messed up with some channels though.

Back to sumo. What time does NHK G start with the sumo broadcast then?

[Mukonoso 273]

NSK's fb page rating change:

Jan 15: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Jan. 16: 3.0 out of 5 stars

Keep it comin' y'all, show them your love!

What? Where do we rate the FB pages? I've never noticed that beyond the Like button.

[Fukurou 534]

A Japanese friend sent me this...I'm too dead to translate it...need some kip...but maybe someone else could summarize the gist. The friend (not the source I mentioned earlier) says that this article says UStream might only be a one-basho trial if it's not popular or something. I've not had time to read it, but it might be relevant. Take a look:

http://toda.sg/online/sumo-on-ustream/

Just the known facts, + opinion:

- the thing is also an experiment to see how much the fans are willing to pay

- it is seen as exploiting the situation of fans longing to see sumo but can't otherwise

- not meaningful for Japanese, because NHK Premium provides world-wide coverage

- just no reference to (conditions for) future basho yet – that doesn't mean that Ustream is a trial

What was that part in the middle - something about something (the stream?) being 1000 yen and 104 yen. Google Translate mangled things, but part of its translation said "the video is US $ 1." What the heck are they talking about?