Watching Live Japanese TV For Free

Problem
You want to watch live Japanese TV but don't want to pay for it.

Solution
Use the software application "KeyHoleTV".  KeyHoleTV is a real time video peer to peer (P2P) streaming application.  It is available for Windows and Linux at no charge.  When you start it up, a long list of available video channels is displayed among which are all of the major Japanese television stations including NHK, Fuji Terebi, Terebi Tokyo, Terebi Asahi, etc.  You simply double-click on the channel you'd like to watch and it starts playing in the window.

If you double-click on the video, it will "detach" to it's own window with a small border.  That window can then be expanded to a larger size or maximized for full screen viewing.

Resources
1. KeyHoleTV Web Site
http://www.v2p.jp/video/
2. KeyHoleTV Web Site, English Version
http://www.v2p.jp/video/english/
3. Xorsyst.com blog post describing KeyHoleTV with more than 350 user fan comments!
http://xorsyst.com/japan/watch-japanese-tv-online/

Discussion
The video and audio quality of KeyHoleTV is not great but it is definitely acceptable considering it is available at no cost.  In my own use of it, I found the video would occasionally freeze. To get around this, I would simply stop and re-start the channel. Most of the time I was watching the video in a larger size than the default so perhaps this contributed to the freezing. The audio is not stereo which makes it sound a bit like you are listening to an AM radio but again, considering that KeyHoleTV is free, it is hard to complain.  I highly recommend this application if you are looking for a quick and easy way to watch live Japanese TV at no cost. For higher quality TV, see this article.