NOTTV changes channel lineup, offers two free channels starting in July

ノッティー {nottī} ("notty") is NOTTV's mascot

Starting July 1st, NOTTV will change its digital broadcasting lineup, both in number of channels and accessibility. A big change is that in addition to one additional channel, two of the channels will become free. Currently, all three of the channels are premium by subscription only (¥400/month to get all channels, with the billing integrated into your phone bill).

The new channel line up will be:

• nottv1: premium
• nottv2: premium
• nottv3: free view
• nottv4: free view

The previous three channel lineup was:

• nottv1: premium
• nottv2: premium
• nottv news: premium; 24 hour TBS Newsbird

NOTTV is a digital broadcasting network that is designed exclusively for Japanese Android "Galapagos" (ガラスマ {garasuma}) smart phones and tablets. Currently, it is available only on devices offered by NTT Docomo — probably because the company that runs it, mmbi, is a NTT Group company. Its broadcast range covers about 90% of Japan, including Okinawa. NOTTV became possible when analog television broadcasting stopped in Japan in 2011. It began offering service starting April, 2012.

Sorry, NOTTV will never be on iPhone

NOTTV is not just software; it requires special hardware and a special antenna. Currently, it's available in about 30 of Docomo's phones and almost 10 of their tablet models. You can add and cancel your NOTTV service to/from your phone bill directly from the application (which includes an addable home screen widget)

NOTTV is similar to Japanese "1seg" (ワンセグ {wan segu}) technology in that it is broadcast digitally OTA using the VHF hi-band space used by regular televisions (which has excellent building wall penetration characteristics). This means that it shares the same telescoping antenna that most 1seg phones have. Unlike 1seg, which is a technology that uses "1 Segment" (out of 13) of a standard Japanese digital HDTV channel, NOTTV doesn't associate with traditional television channels. NOTTV uses a sub-spec of the Japanese digital television standard called ISDB-Tmm. The audio/video digital stream is encrypted MPEG4 AVC/H.264 based.

Like 1seg's XML based BML metadata that displays weather and programming and channel info, guide and other data is sent with the channel. The NOTTV app for Android integrates with both facebook and twitter, so live-tweeting (automatic nottv hashtags are added) of baseball and soccer and other sports is possible.

Nobody reads paper anymore.

The big advantage of 1seg and NOTTV for Japanese commuters is it does not suffer from packet competition during congested times of the day (for example, during morning and evening commutes), meaning it can be watched on the train (providing your train is above ground) during rush hour when every mobile device in Japan is trying to receive data at the same time.

The big advantage that NOTTV has over the older 1seg technology is its superior resolution and frame rate: its current three channels broadcast at 720x480 progressively at 30fps. For its "shift-time" programming, it can go up to 1280x720 (but only at 15fps), which is almost ten times the resolution (and considered HDTV quality) of 1seg, which is 320x240 at 15fps.

1seg is a relatively old technology, and on today's high resolution phones, phablets, and tablets with large screens, the superior resolution of NOTTV is immediately noticeable. In addition, the natural frame rate of 30 per second makes watching action, such as sports, much more enjoyable. NOTTV looks good even on a 10 inch screen tablet.

There's a reason this show starts at midnight on Fridays;
it's not because of low ratings.

In addition to showing premium content such as overseas movies / premium (HBO / Showtime / Netflix) based dramas (English is broadcast on a sub-channel) and professional Japanese sports (particularly J-League soccer and NPB) and animé, NOTTV produces a lot of original content that can only be seen on NOTTV: this includes exclusive AKB content (it's sort of known as "The AKB Channel"), as well as shows devoted to smartphone fandom, and shows that, ahem, run late at night whose genre was once big in the nineties in Japan.

Mori Tower's rival

Its studios and transmission administration is done from Roppongi's Midtown Tower on the 48th floor. I was given a personal tour of its studios and I was impressed with how much they can do with its small space. It's studios spotlights are LED based because the heat that traditional stage lighting generates would be difficult to keep cool within a normal office building.

Docomo/mmbi's previous NOTTV strategy was to offer it free for the first month when you bought a phone, hoping to hook you on the content so you'd pony up for the service after trying it for a month. The two new free channels suggest they are altering their business model so as to tempt people with the premium content at all times.

mmbi's reception inside Midtown Tower