NHK WORLD-JAPAN

I was glad to find this app on the iTunes App Store for both Apple TV & iPhone, but was a bit disappointed to discover that although the picture quality is significantly-better than it is provided by Spectrum cable on one of their channels, unfortunately the Apple TV app doesn’t support fast-forward or rewinding using the Apple TV remote (the pause, volume buttons and mute functions as expected). Worse, exiting the program stream means the user has to start over from the beginning of the stream (it doesn’t remember where you exited the stream); this makes it impractical to use. Out of curiosity, I downloaded the iPhone app, and although it supports Chromecast in app (& iPhone app allows fast-forwarding and rewinding), the video quality is significantly worse than when watching with the Apple TV app. And although the iPhone iOS app supports Chromecast (which I have on my TV), surprisingly it doesn’t offer or support Airplay (which obviously is the preferred choice for Apple TV). The NHK app strikes me as a good app, but as if the developers lost interest in Apple support, so they failed to add even basic features to make it useable.

Overall I like it. A few things bug me, though. 1) I’d prefer fewer voiceovers and more subtitles. I’m trying to learn Japanese, and their limited number of English talent is, well, annoying and distracting. At least give an option to hear the original Japanese or dubbed. 2) They don’t seem to have enough bandwidth dedicated to the service. I don’t have problems streaming any services except NHK World. It’s not all the time, but it’s enough to be annoying. 3) Ditch the hourly news programs. I like the news programs, but they’re on far too frequently. 4) I’d like to see more programming that’s available on NHK in Japan. I get that this is free and in Japan you’re supposed to pay, but I’d like to see more programming that isn’t all about the tourism. Don’t get me wrong — as an outsider that’s also incredibly valuable. But would love to see more dramas that are being viewed in Japan.

NHK was long a family favourite. Their English service nowadays is pretty basic, however, functioning mostly as a travel brochure for Japan. That’s nice enough. But I miss some of the programmes they used to port from regular NHK such as Minna no Uta, but no longer have. And their Chinese service seems drastically scaled back of late. Under the “multilingual” heading, one can access some programmes under simplified Chinese, but only one under proper Chinese (正體中文). This is the same with their website, which is odd as all they need is to automatically convert. NHK World is alright. It lacks some of the quirky character of yesteryear, somehow. But good that they keep producing.