TV Licence article Discussion

Cornucopia

alanaplin wrote: »

At home I only have a laptop and never watch anything broadcast live so I know I don't need a licence (and not had any problems with TV licencing). I spend weekends with a friend who does have a TV licence so I assume I'm ok watching their TV - is this still ok when they are not in the house?

The licence is for the property, not the person. So "yes" to both.

Am I ok for watching live TV on my laptop when they are also in their house or out of the house?

Yes.

Am I ok to watch live TV on my laptop in their garden?

Yes.

Avoriaz

Counterpoise wrote: »

To be fair I haven't run cables from the audio output of my STB to my hi-fi - which would as you suggest probably solve the problem - for boring practical reasons of distance, wrong side of the room etc! So I'm stuck with my relatively lo-fi TV speakers - not ideal if I'm watching BBC4 or similar. It's noticeable however that concerts (e.g. Proms) are NEVER broadcast live on TV any more (except perhaps the Last Night? - cue synchronization experiments this Saturday!) - this seems to be partly so that (even on BBC4) they can broadcast them edited and/or late at night - but I suspect it's also to prevent people complaining about the lack of sync with FM!

Are you unable to easily run cables out of sight?

You could get a suitable length of cable, connect it to one end and leave it coiled up out of sight and only connect it to the other end when you want to use it.

Not an ideal solution but it does avoid the problem of unsightly cables always being visible.

schiff

I 'watch' the day's news via Text. Under the previous Ceefax regime the text filled the whole screen. Under today's system I am obliged to be able to see a half-screen of what is currently showing on TV. I have always found it a great irritant. I would be very hard put to establish that I don't watch live TV in those circumstances.

I'm facing paying twice over for a licence for a second home and I think switching to not watching live TV (there anyway) would be no hardship.

silvasands

Hi
We rarely visit our place in France since the kids grew up. We don`t watch ANY tv stations nor are we able to receive any...no aerial etc.
We use the tv when we play the video machine through it. I think my sister, who shares the house , has been buying a tv licence in France. After reading this article, I think she has been wasting our `shared costs`. Do we or don`t we need a licence?

Nilrem

A quick google suggests that France is one of the countries where you have to declare you have a TV, and a French TV licence is applicable for the property regardless of it it's only used for DVD's/games*.
I think it's got to be declared on one of the tax bills, rather than as something collected separately - I can't remember if it's France of Germany that also requires a separate payment if your car has a radio and the car is registered there.


*As much as some people complain about the UK system, it's a lot less harsh than in some counties as you can opt out here if you have a TV set but don't watch broadcasts/live TV.

Cornucopia

Nilrem wrote: »

*As much as some people complain about the UK system, it's a lot less harsh than in some counties as you can opt out here if you have a TV set but don't watch broadcasts/live TV.

I don't have a problem with people reflecting on what relatively favoured lives we live in the UK compared to some other countries - gives a true sense of perspective on things.

But there are much more important considerations than the mechanism for the TV licence once you go down that line of thinking.

adouglasmhor

HappyMJ wrote: »

No you will need a licence to watch TV on your laptop wherever it is....but for confirmation you'll need to ask TV Licensing.

You can watch her TV at her house without a licence of your own.

You do not need a licence if you are in another persons property which has a licence.

schiff

Does anyone know whether the equipment used by the authorities is sophisticated enough to establish which apartment is 'watching' TV in an apartment block of say 30 apartments?

Cornucopia

I doubt that anyone will answer that in the way you've put it.

If you read up on the subject, you'll find that electronic detection is not in routine use. BBC-TVL simply send a bunch of people out with a list of unlicensed addresses - it's no more sophisticated than that.

Juxxize

Nilrem wrote: »

Digital TV has a more noticable delay because, basically it takes time to encode it into the broadcast streams.

You also have the delays inherent with the various methods of delivery for it - for example satellite has a delay due to light speed lag (it takes longer to send the microwave signal from play out facility, to the ground station to the satellite than a few hundred miles max across country).

The same is true for how the STB decodes it, and for how analogue TV used to be transmitted, there were enough transmitters/relays in place that each delayed the signal slightly, that a transmission in one part of the country could be slightly later than in another - it's just a lot more obvious with digital due to the longer links (and additional coding/decoding stages).

The same is true for radio - even the best encoding gear requires some buffer to work with, and that's before it can start sending the signal out to be mixed into the broadcast mux, and before transmitters/relays add their own delays.

It used to be that if I had analogue TV on in one room, and cable TV on in another on the same channel, the analogue set would have the signal anything up to a couple of seconds in advance (almost like an echo).

As for it cancelling out the TVL, no such luck, as the law allows for things like transmission lag/the decoding of the signal.

As for the last bit I've underlined it because I'm confused when is a lag / delay long enough that it is no longer classed as live TV ?? I've been looking all over for this information as regards to what is actually classed as 'live' TV .The whole subject of TV licensing is very confusing and I think the BBC make it as such so people are confused and just pay up