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KeyHoleTV: Watch Live Japanese TV Online!

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March 2020 update: I have found a better way to watch Japanese TV Online, check out AQ Stream!!!

Have you ever wanted to know how to watch real-time, live Japanese TV for free? Maybe you’re trying to learn Japanese, but want to hear real Japanese and not the type you hear in Anime. Well, there is a free program called KeyHoleTV that will let you do just that. KeyHoleTV is part of a project by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs testing out P2P (peer to peer) technology. You can also stream your live video using the same technique with a program called KeyHoleVideo. While the audio and video isn’t the highest quality, it is watchable. KeyholeTV has a decent, but limited selection of channels. The more prominent channels are TBS, TV Tokyo, TV Asahi, and Fuji TV. There are also a few smaller channels and user broadcasts that change randomly. If you’re interested in downloading it, here’s a step by step guide.

1. Download KeyHoleTV

Head over to http://www.oiseyer.com/index3-win10-e.php and download the file labeled “SetupKHTV4.26.exe ” or you can click here: Download KeyHoleTV.

2. Install KeyHoleTV

3. Run KeyHoleTV

When you run KeyHoleTV for the first time, you will see a window like the one below. Just type in a username and password and click “Start Registration” to sign up. You will need this username and password each time you start the application, so don’t lose it!

4. Channel listings

KeyholeTV Starting screen

After successful registration, you will see the channel listings for KeyHoleTV. On this screen, you will see the channel name, a preview picture of what’s currently playing, and the number of viewers watching that specific channel. When you see a high number of people watching, it usually means something good is on. Remember that here in the United States, we are about 14 hours behind JST (Japan Standard Time).

So a lot of the popular shows and Anime will come on at odd times for us. Here is a listing of the current channels as of today. The channels are always changing. Match the beginning of the channel name with the English in red:

KeyholeTV Channel Listings in English

Once you have started watching a channel, you must click the blue stop button to select another channel to watch.

5. Premium Module

New with this version is a Premium module key. By purchasing this key, you will get a faster bitrate. You are probably wondering how much faster it is, so I decided to buy a premium account to test it out. Is it faster? Yes, but not by much. I do not notice any skipping what so ever where I did see very choppy sound sometimes on a standard account. If you are serious about watching Japanese TV Online, it may be worth the purchase.

So there you go. If you are using this to help you with learning Japanese, I hope you get a lot out of KeyHoleTV. I will be updating this page when I see new channels, so bookmark the page or subscribe to my RSS Feed, so you don’t miss anything. Below are a few TV Guide Japan type websites so if you know Japanese, or can figure out what the kanji means, you can have a better idea of what’s playing.

(OUTDATED) A brief explanation of the buttons:

  • KeyholeTV Online Button Logs you on and off of the server. Sometimes you will see errors saying that you are not connected to the server. Just click the button Off, and then back On to log back in.
  • KeyholeTV Mute Button Allows you to mute the sound. Trigger On and Off.
  • KeyholeTV Video Button Allows you to stop and start the video.
  • KeyholeTV Update Channel Listings The channel listings refresh every now-and-then. Use this button to manually update the channel listings for KeyHoleTV.
  • KeyholeTV Watch Channel Button After you have selected a channel in the channel listings window, click the Watch button to view the channel.
  • KeyholeTV Search Channel Listings Right now, you don’t have to worry about this button as there are not many channels available on KeyHoleTV. However, in the future, this button is going to be a must-have.
  • KeyholeTV Chat with the Broadcaster I haven’t seen any broadcasters chatting, but I assume that KeyHoleTV has the option of allowing the viewers to chat with the presenters. There is a popular channel that features actress Risa Ishimoto, not sure if you can chat with her or not.
  • KeyholeTV Video Tab This tab allows you to view the video window.
  • KeyHoleTV Program Tab This tab allows you to view the channel listings.

KeyHoleTV, what will you use it for?

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639 Comments

  2. So odd: the KHTV website’s been down for quite a while now so I couldn’t upgrade, but worst of all, KHTV had stopped connecting altogether .. I’ve got 3.09 (Linux), and it was working perfectly until recently :( now its all “Login timed out. Check your Network”.. Does the 3.12 version work without problems atm, or is it the same story??

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  3. Hi Marmedo,

    The Windows 3.12 version works well. I downloaded the latest Linux version before their site went down along with Windows. Here is a link. This is the 64 bit version.

    http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/528943/LKeyHoleTV1.21-64bits.tar.gz

    Unfortunately I did not get the 32 bit one along with 64. I’m running Fedora 10 with Gnome and the video is excellent but unfortunately I have not been able to get sound. Previously, as you know, they had different versions depending on your setup – ALSA, SDL, ESD, etc. This time it is all in one package and you can specify your setup on a new “Audio/Video” tab. I tried all combinations but couldn’t get sound. :-( If you are running 64 bit and get it to work I’d be interested to hear about it! Hopefully their web site will be back up soon.

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  6. Thank you very much for the reply. Yes, I read the past Comments but I didn’t understand well. Now I understood, thank you. I will download the New Version hoping to listen again to RADIO NIPPON 1422 (^_^)

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  11. Thanks for the reply Jdictionary! (Sorry for my late reply, I’ve had PC trouble for a few days.)

    Thanks for the link!! I’m running Ubuntu Intrepid (intel x86 version), but I downloaded the 64bit link anyways :D I also just checked the website (it was working, finally!) and downloaded the 32 bit as well.. On testing them both, ‘lkeyholetv’ near ate up all of my CPU even before the setup section could even show; so I had to “Force-quit” them..

    I downloaded the ubuntu 8.04 version, which didn’t take as much CPU but still managed to chronically slow down the PC to a snails-pace (conky showed CPU to be 90% in use!), and got the sound working only by selecting the UNIX option. Selecting ALSA and other options resulted in the “login timed out” message; which is really strange because I’ve set-up ALSA for my sound-card on the system!

    Even with the sound sorted, the major CPU usage resulted in the video being several seconds out of sync with the sound, plus all other apps I had open completely frozen; so, once AGAIN, I had to force-quit it. *sigh*

    Come to think of it, I never had these problem with the previous 1.10(?) version. Have you contacted Kosaka-san about the sound problem? I’m thinking of doing so myself; it seems there are alot of bugs with the new linux 1.12 releases :'(

    As a last resort, I went ahead and downloaded Win 3.12 and installed it on XP in Virtualbox, and lo and behold: it worked just fine! \(^o^)/ (It didn’t work through Wine though). Using the Win version seems to be the only way in which I could actually access KHTV without having to tear my hair out! lol

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  13. Hi everyone! I have downloaded the latest version of Keyhole tv 3.12 and its keep telling me:”Login timed out.Check your Network”… I¨ve heard that there is some mainntance on keyhole tv and that no one can watch it these days,some upgrades and so on;so if someone finds out when will the mainntance be over let us know…Thnx

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  17. Tommx, I just tried with both Windows and Linux and I was able to login and stream TV with both. On Windows, a security alert may pop-up asking if you want to “block or unblock” the KeyHole TV service. I suspect you will need to make sure and “unblock” that one.

    Marmedo, thanks for the reply! I just tried the 32 bit Linux client at work and it worked pretty nicely. I am running Fedora 10 on this PC as well and the OS is 32 bit (home one is 64 bit). The first time I ran it, it said something like “Could not use audio device”. I had the audio set to ALSA. I have seen similar errors with other applications like mplayer. What I did was open up a shell and type “pulseaudio -kill” and then “pulseaudio -D”. After doing this, the audio came to life. In the AUDIO/VIDEO tab, I have audio set to ALSA and video set to “Video Display uses GTK Viewer”. I’ll try doing the same at home and see if it fixes the audio problem. Sorry to hear about your CPU issues but I’m glad you found a workaround!

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  18. Its unblocked and I cant log in,i dont get it… Ive tried to reinstall it and i have checked my internet connection and the windows firewall security and everything is just fine… I dont get it..:(

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  24. i still cant watch keyhole tv beacuse of the login program…And i really dont know what to do can someone help? Btw i checked everything about internet connection and firewall and everything is fine… Thnx

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  25. i was wondering if anyone knows if it is possible to get the passwords to some of the channels on keyhole tv. love watching japanese tv, really helps with learning japanese. please keep this program up. (^-^)

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  26. Can someone help me with this? I have contacted one of the keyhole employee and he send me this to mail:
    “Thank you very much to use KeyHoleTV.

    Please start the command prompt. And then execute
    nslookup.
    type v2p.keyholetv.jp (enter)

    If nslookup returns,

    Name: v2p.keyholetv.jp
    Address: 113.32.187.18

    your DNS is correct. However, if nslookup returns
    different address, your DNS is the something wrong.
    In this case, you have to edit the registory,
    execute regedit by start menu -> run.
    In the regedit, you can find
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\KeyHoleTV,
    and you can find HostAddr.
    The value of the HostAddr is v2p.keyholetv.jp, and you can change 113.32.187.18 instead of v2p.keyholetv.jp.”

    I dont know what to do,i can¨t find some of these folders so if someone could help thnx…

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  27. Hi Tommx,

    I’m glad you are at least getting something to try. The folders are paths in your registry. To get to the registry, you need to run “regedit” either from a command prompt or by clicking Start->Run, then type “regedit” into the text box and click OK. Once you do that, you will see what appear to be folders and his email will make more sense. They are not folders on your hard drive if that is where you were looking.

    Before you try that though, did you do the first part of his email? I’m just curious if you are getting back 113.32.187.18 when you do an nslookup on v2p.keyholetv.com. You can also try “ping v2p.keyholetv.com” for the same check. You should get back a resolution of that name into an IP. For example, if you click Start->Run, type “cmd” and hit “OK”, then type:

    ping v2p.keyholetv.com

    you should get back something like this:

    C:\Windows\system32>ping v2p.keyholetv.jp

    Pinging v2p.keyholetv.jp [113.32.187.18] with 32 bytes of data:
    Reply from 113.32.187.18: bytes=32 time=211ms TTL=42

    The important part is the numbers after “Reply from”. If it is already 113.32.187.18 then you don’t need to do the registry editing.

    Assuming you don’t get back 113.32.187.18, an alternative to editing the registry (it is usually not advisable to edit your registry because you can mess up your entire system if you make a mistake) is to override your local system’s DNS lookup for that domain name. The way to do this is to add an entry to your hosts file which is located here: (usually, but not always depending on version of Windows you are running):

    C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

    You can open that file in notepad and add this as the last line:

    113.32.187.18 v2p.keyholetv.jp

    to accomplish the same thing that the registry edit is doing. It is probably safer and perhaps easier.

    If you are still stuck, answer these questions and I will try to help tomorrow. I’m going to bed now.

    1) Which version of Windows are you using?
    2) What is the IP address result of the ping/nslookup test?
    3) Do you have the file C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts on your computer

    Good luck, hope you can get it worked out.

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  34. Hiya people. I’ve noticed some people having problem connecting.
    I Had the same problem in the last few days. I just installed the latest version and now i’m back into it. =) hope this helps a few of you out =)

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  36. I absolutely have the same problem. I wrote an e-mail as well but they didn’t reply yet. I tried the registry change and the “hosts” file. When I try the nslookup I get Name:113x32x187x18.ap113.ftth.ucom.ne.jp
    Address: 113.32.187.18 back.
    If I ping their IP the request will be timed out.
    If I ping v2p.keyholetv.jp it is successful.
    If I use tracert no matter if ip or v2p.keyholetv.jp I get a huge 9times Resquest timed out after passing? 221x112x24x30.ap221.ftth.ucom.ne.jp
    It worked before pretty well but since their strange change it doesn’t anymore. I have three computers (vista ultimate, xp prof, xp home). Hopefully this can be fixed I’m really sad and desperate.

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  38. i also noticed the missing channels when i went to watch today. was wondering what was up so i came here. hopefully its only temporary. im already in withdrawal from the missing shows XD just shows how much i rely on this program without realizing it.

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  39. say can anyone tell me if TBS and Tokyo Tv have been taken off the keyhole channel list. I opened it up today and they weren’t on there. do i just need a new version or is that they just decided to take those channels off. thanks in advance.

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  47. hi there! i have a question… in my keyhole tv, i noticed that there are some channels that needs password? how’s that? can you give me the passwords to access the channels? if that’s ok with you. (just e-mail the passwords for saftey(?)). arigatou gozaimasu!

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