TV Licence Super Thread

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Werewolf said:
Aye, one of the big things the BBC does that people don't realise is that they organise/do much of the work for the standards of UK broadcasting.
They also do a lot of the work to make sure that our broadcasting system is compatible with international standards (and historically have played a large part in setting the practical standards).

they can't usually deploy the new stuff in a visible manner because they have to wait until it becomes of value to the viewer and a reasonable expense, but they were doing things like test HD transmissions before Sky were, let alone before terrestrial HD started broadcasting, they've been doing testing of various standards for ultra hi definition and 4k from major events for a while (they tend to start filming things in higher definition than broadcast for testing then for future use), doing work on improving the broadcast quality whilst retaining compatibility with existing equipment, and are still working on improving various things to do with radio and audio.

A lot of the projects we never hear about unless you look into it as it ends up simply being incorporated into the production/broadcast.
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See, this is the first I've heard of this. I really have no obligation payign at all if there is actually a benefit to it, but I've always considered it to be paid for no other reason than because they can throw their weight around.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
There was an interesting question raised earlier nobody addressed.

If you have a tv licence and go into your mates house who doesn't have one and you watch live tv on your smartphone. Is that allowed?

Does the licence cover a home or individuals living within that household anywhere?
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as long as it wasn't plugged into a power outlet, then you would be covered.
covers home and mobile devices, but oddly devices aren't considered mobile if plugged in.
aslo doesn't cover a home if your on individual contracts, ie have locks on you room. like a lot of student accommodation.
 
Diddums said:
See, this is the first I've heard of this. I really have no obligation payign at all if there is actually a benefit to it, but I've always considered it to be paid for no other reason than because they can throw their weight around.
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by throw weight around, you do realise its a tax, same as council, vehicle or any other tax and that is why they can throw there weight around.
they;re just allowed to bully more as its extremely hard to prove and no one should be getting done for it, as its so easy to block them from proving it.
 
Diddums said:
They need to make that more well known then. As a consumer who reads the papers, ....ere the money goes and what it's actually used for I might be willing to pay.
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They do actually try to make it known to the general public, unfortunately they're not allowed to take out full page adverts in the DM to say "this is what we do", and the papers love distorting what the BBC does do.
For example they'll go on about the huge salaries of BBC employees, usually forgetting to mention that the BBC is paying less than ITV or C4, let alone Sky, and frequently taking the amount paid to get a ready to air program as the personal pay.
Or they'll talk about the BBC sending people on "jolies" forgetting to mention that they were working, as an example of that one of the Doctor Who Confidentials had Russell T Davis and the then Doctor in Venice, the Mail ran a story about the BBC spending hundreds of pounds to send them there for fun, what actually happened was that as they had a film crew in Venice taking required shots for the actual Doctor Who episode, they decided to get the full monies worth out of the film crew by also filming background stuff that could be shown on the secondary show, so for the cost of a couple of plane tickets they got an extra 15-30 minutes worth of content (which would have been a bargain given the cost of the film crew).


What the BBC does do is put up things like blogs and pages on their website explaining some of the technical work they're doing, or have implemented, from memory one example of that was recently they did feature on how they did testing for ultra hi def broadcasts using a prototype encoder built in house using commercially available multi function chips as proof of concept, or the work they did to replace aging broadcast equipment for Radio 4 (I think it was) that had to maintain compatibility with data broadcasts as there wasn't a commercially available replacement.
IIRC they're also for example doing a lot of work on video compression (something they've been working on since about the 70's when I think they developed an early digital video recorder), with things like improving h265/HEVC for broadcast and production usage.
I think they also offered Iplayer's tech to the other broadcasters at one point, but were told they weren't allowed to because it would have hurt the commercial companies making their own versions (so ITV player could potentially have been much better:p).

Their accounts are also readily available if you're interested although you have to remember little things like if the BBC pays for an hour of content, it will be about 58 minutes of content whilst ITV might pay for an hour of content and get 45 minutes worth (due to adverts).
Which means that on paper the BBC content may be more per hour (because it's got 20% more per hour), but in terms of cost per minute of produced programming it's cheaper.
Likewise BBC radio is more expensive than most of the commercial broadcasters because the BBC actually employs people to be on the station, and for content on the station (the reason R4 is so expensive is because it has actually programming rather than just a DJ/announcer).
A lot of the commercial broadcasters might only have one or two people running half a dozen stations much of the time, and only have live presentation (recorded for all stations in the network) for a few hours a day.
 
Glaucus said:
as long as it wasn't plugged into a power outlet, then you would be covered.
covers home and mobile devices, but oddly devices aren't considered mobile if plugged in.
aslo doesn't cover a home if your on individual contracts, ie have locks on you room. like a lot of student accommodation.
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I suppose the plugged in is to cover me from plugging a phone/tablet into a tv/monitor in that house?
 
Psycho Sonny said:
I suppose the plugged in is to cover me from plugging a phone/tablet into a tv/monitor in that house?
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it's more to do with power and has been like that for years well before it was easy to connect mobile devices, but i suppose that would still be covered as the tv would be plugged into mains.
i suppose its just a way of defining a portable device. so people dont try, well this 30" tv is portable.

on the subject of radio, i really wish bbc would make a music only channel with no bloody presenters, even commercial ones have annoying morning programs. No news, no presenters, no adverts, just a full day of nothing but music and from a large catalog not just 40 songs on repeat.
 
I'm probably not going to bother renewing mine after this year (I don't pay by DD, I pay yearly by card). My TV is 8 years old and I barely watch it any more. I'm just going to replace it with a giant monitor or projector, a laptop and "catchup" services. There is really nothing you need to watch as it's being broadcasted. I'm happy to wait 10 minutes for it to appear on catchup.
 
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[TFU] Thegoon84;29862386 said:
Annoys me I have to pay £12 a month for a server I NEVER use and pay Virgin, I literally do not watch a single things on bbc, itv, channel 5 4, s4c whatever..... Just discovery! Agrrr.
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Join the enlightened side, forgo terrestrial TV altogether, don't pay the licence and don't pay for Virgin/sky TV.

I just pay for virgin broadband, and for whatever we watch online.
 
[TFU] Thegoon84;29862462 said:
So if I say cancelled all my packages and just kept internet.

What could I do instead.... I do occasionally watch BBC news when nothing else is on? Could I still do that? What's the rules with Iplayer?
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You need a license for iPlayer from 1st Sept. Any other catch-up services or Netflix/NowTV/Amazon Prime etc. do not require a license. Yet.

The hardest bit about cancelling for me was convincing the misses. Even she doesn't miss it now.
 
Glaucus said:
BBC documentaries are good, still cheaper to either buy them out right or wait for them on Netflix though. Its not like there's new documentaries worth watching every week. There's a couple a year on BBC.
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We seriously cannot find the time to watch all our BBC content and have to keep watching programmes on catchup - and that is just with programmes mostly from BBC 2 and BBC 4.

I dread to think what some of you watch from one week to the next on TV I really do. We've got Eggheads of an evening and we are now into the Proms etc. etc. We certainly don't watch any soaps though do like a good comedy or two.

The BBC licence fee has to be the best value for money of any product I can think of - seriously.
 
Billies Bangers said:
We seriously cannot find the time to watch all our BBC content and have to keep watching programmes on catchup - and that is just with programmes mostly from BBC 2 and BBC 4.

I dread to think what some of you watch from one week to the next on TV I really do. We've got Eggheads of an evening and we are now into the Proms etc. etc. We certainly don't watch any soaps though do like a good comedy or two.

The BBC licence fee has to be the best value for money of any product I can think of - seriously.
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Sounds horendus, perhaps watch less as there isn't much good on tv. Including BBC. If you're in that state, you're watching some real rubbish.
 
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