Comcast unscrambles TV Japan channel to view quake, tsunami news

[Duer 157099]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Comcast has unscrambled TV Japan, a 24-hour Japanese news channel, so its digital cable customers in California can watch coverage of the disastrous earthquake and tsunami.

The network is normally a premium channel, but it will be available for all digital cable subscribers on Channel 330 until next Friday, said Comcast spokesman Andrew Johnson.

"English translation is available on the channel's secondary audio program SAP (but) there have been some minor glitches with the translation service this morning," Johnson said in an e-mail.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=84840&tsp=1

[stockholmer]

1. I guess the check from the pro-nuke lobby for maintaining media control bounced

[Abq_Sarah]

2. That's an odd statement

I have friends in California with family in Japan who will appreciate this move. And no, they're not anti's.

[stockholmer]

5. I guess I should have fleshed it out more.....

the Japan live feed may show, to a greater and perhaps off-script narrative degree, the damage/disaster occurring at the nuclear plants, as opposed to a more controlled picture that the US may be putting out

[SkyDaddy7]

9. That did not make since either...

Every USA media organization has been almost entirely focused on the possible meltdown. Try again.

[slay]

3. AT$T Uverse has done the same thing - thru March 17th.

and yet they still refuse to carry Aljazeera English.

[valerief]

7. That's cuz Aljazeera has real news. Real news is dangerous in Merka. nt

[leftynyc]

19. So has Cablevision

I got an email from them on Friday with the news.

[Doris32r]

4. Time Warner has too

I don't know for how long? I just tried it on my tv and it is unscrambled.

[bananas]

18. Time Warner also offering free phone calls to Japan

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x633846

[kas125]

6. I just called Dishnetwork and told them that the others

had unscrambled their JapanTV channels and asked if they'd done it too. The woman told me not yet, but probably by tomorrow they would because "it's something they're looking into." So, hopefully, they'll do it, too.

[Tx4obama]

8. Only in California? Or everywhere? n/t

[bigworld]

10. NHK is free online and on MHz Networks

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/

it's over the air here in Washington, as well, on channel 30.2

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. I have been watching that station on the puter for days now. It is very good.

[chatnoir]

12. Clueless here but ...

What do they mean by the channel's SAP?

[Duer 157099]

13. Alternate language

second audio program? I wish I knew how to activate it so I could understand what they're saying.

[christx30]

14. Google is your friend in this situation

google the brand of TV you have with the word SAP behind it. Prolly find gobs of people asking how to do it in forums with people answering it. That's how I find a lot of stuff in my job. I do DSL tech support. :)

[Duer 157099]

15. So it's the TV and not the cable box?

For some reason I thought it originated at the cable box. At one point I learned how to get into the setup for the cable box (the special kind that requires an incantation and pressing certain buttons together and/or in sequence) and I found the SAP option there. But I'd have to look it up again. And, if it's really the TV that controls this, then it may be moot.

But thanks for the reminder of what I really should do to find out, you're correct.

[christx30]

16. heck... if it works

in the cable box options that you found, go for it. but a lot of TVs can do it too. The TV that my family had for about 10 years had a button that did it. We got spanish translation of english stuff. So we didn't use it much.

[TrogL]

17. Shaw Cablesystems did the same thing in Canada