世論 What Japan Thinks

With the airwaves being saturated recently with adverts for DMM.COM, the very high number of people aware of services like DMM.COM in this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into movie viewing is not surprising at all.

Demographics

On the 6th of May 2010 1,114 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 16.1% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

Recently my movie watching at home has been pretty close to zero due to a lack of time – I’m thinking we should cancel our cable subscription and just watch all the stacked-up DVDs that have been building up over the last few years. On the other hand I do go to a real cinema around once a month.
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There’s a lot of interesting data in this short survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into recording television programs, although I’d like to have seen a larger sample size and a more detailed look at some of the data.

Demographics

Between the 27h and 30th of August 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.0% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

The more detailed information I’d like (perhaps I’ll get it some time from goo Research’s regular digital TV survey?) is to see if people are currently buying either DVD or Blu-Ray recorders for their digital terrestrial decoders or for their recording capabilities, as it can be seen in Q1SQ2 that the recorders based around the dead HD DVD format are just as popular for time-shifting as Blu-Ray devices. With the analog switch-off less than two years away (24th July 2011), many of the almost one-in-three still using tape are going to find themselves in some trouble, I suspect.

I watch more real-time television – I use the weekends to catch up on stuff I’ve missed.
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Having wondered out loud in an entry a couple of days ago whether people fill their iPods from rental CDs, perhaps this survey from MyVoice into CD, DVD, book, comic, etc rental gives the answer.

Demographics

Over the first five days of April 2009 15,426 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 35% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% aged fifty or older.

Note than in the survey DVD would include Blu-Ray, I believe.

It’s interesting that over one in five has tried an online rental-by-mail system, and I also find it perhaps curious that none of the five named services have an obvious English-language (or other foreign languages) page – they stock a lot of English-language movies and there’s a reasonable number of us in far-flung corners of Japan who may be potential customers.
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This look with MyVoice at DVD (and other media) recorder usage, their fifth survey on the topic, revealed a few interesting statistics such as the one in the headline and that the now defunct-for-over-a-year HD DVD format still outranks Blu-Ray recorders, although as noted last time I reported such a number, one wonders if there is a degree of misidentification by users. I wonder if HD DVD suggested Hard Disk plus DVD to some respondents?

Demographics

Over the first five days or March 2009 15,482 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% aged fifty or older.

I got hit by a rather irritating feature between my cable box and my DVD recorder. Despite both being made by the same company, you cannot get a digital out into the DVD recorder that will allow me to record two channels at once. The support line said the only option was to rent their high-end set-top box that has a built-in hard disk recorder, but that seemed rather unsatisfactory, especially as we only took their cheapest package of converting our existing analog service to digital but no high vision, so we’ve ended up paying them an extra 300 yen plus we get a thinner paper program guide for the privilege.
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With a story last week about cigarette smoke clogging up the laser on the Wii, this is a timely survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into faulty DVD playback devices.

Demographics

Between the 31st of January and 1st of February 2008 1,095 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% were male, 17.5% in their teens, 19.4% in their twenties, 15.9% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, 18.4% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

As I only own less than half a dozen DVDs and haven’t watched any of them for months if not years, I can’t say I’ve ever had a problem with DVDs.

Oh, and if you’re coming here via a Google search for the keywords in the article title, sorry to disappoint you!
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Top of my list of electrical items to buy for the house is a HDR, or Hard Disk Recorder, the name commonly used for PVRs, Personal Video Recorders, or TiVo-like devices. This survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Cross Marketing or television program recording looks at how these HDRs are used in Japan.

Demographics

Over the 9th and 10th of January 2008 300 members of the Cross Marketing online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50.0% male, with 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

I’ve heard people in Japan talk of how their lives have changed with the advent of the HDR; the biggest plus is for people who have children, as kids can’t wait, but now the television can. When their kid needs attention, the live broadcast can be paused, the child attended to, then the program resumed. Secondly, lots of children’s programs can be saved to disk, and their favourite programs called up at the touch of the button, and scenes they enjoy can be repeated over and over again.
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