We don't have to pay for basic cable, but if you want anything other than news, you have to pay. We have satilite with somthing around 800+ channels, and i think it's like 50$/mo.

Yeah, we have to pay here in germany 18€ every month! Even if you use youre tv only for watchig dvds :( sucks big time!
yes we have to pay for all those crappy shows on national TV here.
A tv license & Digi-box, they are going to shut down the analog broadcast to make everyone switch to digital.
Nope. TV is generally free in the Philippines but they do have crap shows like Zaido which is a crap spinoff of the Metal Hero series Shaider so if I was required to pay for the shows on that channel, I'd rather gouge my eyes out.
here in signapore, we only need to pay tv license anually. though most have cable
Good old UK! To watch TV of any kind you have to pay for a TV license which funds our national channel, the BBC. Other channels get their revenue by advertising... Lots... Don't watch TV so I don't have a license, but i guess it's not too bad a deal. The BBC is a pretty decent channel (though they've been going downhill recently) but I wish that other channels cut down on their Ads. As for the DS tuner, I don't really see the point. The screen is too small to make use of TV watching...
I told an NHK guy I didn't have a TV, no one ever came again... :)
It does look kinda useful, I admit.
the cost of a TV licence for a household in Singapore is S$110 (about US$76).
Few years ago, yes. Now, no.
Excuse me... stress AND DIARRHEA? LOL! I mean, I've seen my share of weird exercises on portables... like the facial one. But diarrhea relieving? LOL Looks great.. a pitty Brazil is still far away from having stuff like that. I mean, we've just began testing Digital TV now, and only on major cities. Anyways, we don't have to pay for public TV. But I must say that if I had to, I'd just hand the antenna off, because it's pure crap. Nowadays I pretty much use public TV for news only, and on select days... because it's unbelievable the ammount of crap they'll force on viewers everyday.
Yeah, the BBC doesn't have any advert revenues, which is good some ways. For one obvious reason; there are no ads whatsoever. But even better, programs like Top Gear can afford to talk bad about all the cars they review without fear of losing sponsors. Does the NHK run adverts? If so then it doesn't seem worth paying the fee...
That TV Tuner is pretty neat, though it's a bit...big. Makes the DS look a little clunky. As for paying for TV, NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS are freebies. PBS is a sorta-freebie. (We can't pick PBS up on antenna, but can with cable.) They also remove programing for about a week, every two months(It seems for KERA at least) and request donations. T
yeah we do have to pay a TV license in Singapore, but I guess the shows are pretty good so I'm not really complaining.
Looks like something out of the Transformers movie :P Id love to get one when/if they become available in my area.
@frost, the channels you are talking about are analog ones, although digital television signal are already available in the Philippines and is at the moment free. I heard that some of the channels would start requiring an annual fee for viewing.
Yeh we have to pay, but it's not really a waste of money imo. The shows are fairly good.
i want one of this!!! watch soccer in ds yeaah!! i ahve a old electric blue ds but the right to have R4 card is nescesary thing, this one too, you have notice if this "tv tuner" came to southamerica??
We pay once a year for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation here in Norway... don't think everyone does though... BTW, I can't see how this TV adapter "clicks" when inserted in the card slot. Does it?
the"regular big four are free.. abc, cbs, nbc and fox... pbs is a sponsored one.. they ask you to pay a donation. other than that.. cable isn't free.. and thats where most of the good stuff is.. so most have it.. at...egh.$30-50 bucks for basic chanells.. depends what ya want..
Hot damn, that is just too nifty. Words fail me.

can you use this if you're not in Japan? I'm in the USA could I get japanese channels or USA channels?
Most of what I want to watch is free thanks to BT. For live soccer matches there is P2P TV like TVU.
Looks cool... Well, we don't have to pay for local channels here...
No offense, but I think thats useless IMO. Instead sitting on the couch and watching TV is better xD
We do need to pay a license fee but I wonder if someone can get away without paying if they don't own a TV... I'll like to have the DS TV tuner if it works in my region
Haha! I didn't know you had to pay in Japan for National TV... We don't, and it sounds strange to me that you pay for national television...
Yes, we have to pay and I pay. You even have to pay for a PC because there is the possibility of using it for watching internet-tv.
sugoi~~ ten thousand reasons more to buy a DS than PSP!! and NHK is brewing the next Hikikomoris..therefore, you dun have to pay them ^^
that attachment looks ugly and is very bulky, thank you but i'll stick with my psp (although i do actually own a ds).

DS TVチューナー及び、PSP TVチューナーでは、1SEG(Japan,Brazil)という移動デジタルTV規格を使います。ちなみに1SEGではNHKの受信料は不要です。海外では規格採用国が多いDVB-H(EU)は近い将来、DSとPSPのTVチューナーに対応する可能性はあります。しかし、固定デジタルTV規格にATSC(America,Canada,Korea,Taiwan...)を採用している国では、移動デジタルTV規格が無いので、対応する可能性は有りません。
20 reasons more why to buy a DS??? the PSP has Wi-Fi, Voip, webcam, online co-op/head to head gaming, Tv tuner, better graphics, Tv out, & an external hard drive to store all your home brews & movies or music. Does the DS have even half these things? the only thing thats wrong with the psp is the lack of decent games for it.
geez, psp had 1seg tv tuner months before this but the ds gets all the glory.
nope no fee for that here. all channels in usa are private and most people pay for cable or satalite to have more channels. In Belarus (where i was born) there was no tax either. So the channels are private or government owned?? why do they ask you to pay?
does anyone know if this can b used in australia?
This is probably one of Nintendo's best peripheral units. It's something I would definitely love to have stuck in my DS.
Now that's cool. :) Doesn't cost nearly as much as I anticipated; I wonder whether it's compatible with the digital signal here in Holland. Does anyone know which digital carrier band is used in Japan? I hope it's also compatible with PAL. We have to pay for non-commercial stations as well, but this is collected through our taxes. I've given up on cable a long time ago; nothing interesting to see. I would fancy some handheld FTA-TV though; since I carry my DS with me al the time, this would be great to have while commuting.
Definitely way cheaper than i expected. But first i need a ds... -_-;
I hope they bring this to the states, though I don't know when I would ever use it lol. No time to watch when I drive and everywhere else I bring my laptop with me. But I would still get it ^^.
i want that fantastic tv tuner *ç*

starting 2008, France will have the same digital broadcast system for mobil equipment, but we will use an other standard than 1-seg. So hope nintendo will release a compatible tuner for us. we also pay a fee for public television (5 channels) which is included in local taxes since last year. But there is some advantage in the publis channel system such as no real TV and the most important, there is no programs cutting by ADVERTISING, only in between show. When u have seen some american series cut four time in 45 minutes it's pretty noticeable.
Australia is still doing trials on the DVB-H spec. So i guess if devices like the DS Tuner or the PSP Tuner are ever released here in the future it'll have to be for DVB-H. The one major problem i have with these tuner devices are the antennas. Why can't they make a smaller antenna that's just as effective?
i don't know when the phils will migrate to digital tv broadcasting. it is either they can't afford to migrate as of now or they are just cheap and greedy >.> lol Danny, you use a R4 XDDD how do you like your R4? ^_____^ homebrew games = FTW! R4 = WINS THE INTERNETS!!!

This looks good, just a little bulky. Your pics look good, thanks for posting!
Ahhhh you have an R4, I'm quite new to the homebrew scene but I recently came across an amazing program for DS called wifi VoiceChatClient, you can download it here: http://mdxonline.dyndns.org/archives/2007/10/wifi_voicechatclient_ver_161.shtml It'd be v cool to speak to you on it sometime ^,^ Anyway on the topic of the TV Tuner yes I want one alot but first gotta get myself over to Japan so I could use it. I heard that orders have been outstripping demand so lucky you for getting one already.

While it seems like a good counter measure against Sony's own 1Seg tuner for their PSP-2000 series, it's hardly well designed. The thing has been up in the air since the DS' release, but Nintendo had only materialized it now because of the pressure put on by Sony's release of the PSP-2000. Hardware wise, it looks like a rush job built with the Gameboy Color in mind, and its' antenna killed almost all portable aspects of the DS. I mean, can you imagine using that on a train? It pales in comparison to the PSP's 1Seg... Software wise, it looks rather refine, though features such as the notepad and Game&Watch looks more like something that was originally going to be release as stand-alones (Which I hope they'll do in the future), but was included to add value to the tuner. Although I wonder what resolution does the tuner outputs in? 256x192? It looks rather nice for something with that resolution if true.
National TV is free here...but all the nice shows are on pay tv =D