Delay after delay, Mobile digital broadcasts launch is finally all set to begin its launch Oct. 20th. The device seems cool enough, allowing users to have a little digital TV that they carry with them anywhere. To me personally, I am not sure that this sort of thing would fly as well here in the States though.

After a lot of delays it seems that Mobile Broadcasting, Japan’s first provider of digital terrestrial TV for mobile devices, is finally launching their service on October 20. They’ve already stuffed journalists into buses for mammoth TV-watching roadtrips to prove that the reception is OK; now, it’s time to see what the gadgets are like. On the evidence at their launch event, we’re a little lukewarm; the Sharp and Toshiba TVs that’ll be available initially will cost Y60,000-Y70,000 ($540-$630), and though they’re pitched as “AV players” recording is to SD memory card rather than hard disk, which puts something of a crimp in the amount of video you’ll be able to carry around. Cellphones with TV receivers, for which prototypes are beginning to surface, should show up around 2006.