Black and white tv Licence holders

[Nuvistor]

From the specs quoted, although perhaps not complete stated " Pause, rewind, record live TV -No."
http://www.tesco.com/direct/dion-fre...skuId=634-7742

So from the statement quoted about " can't record" I assume if the box has the facility even if USB storage required you would require a Colour one.

But what do I know, rules are sometimes written to be as ambigious as possible.

Frank

[Welsh Anorak]

I would imagine that as technology is changing at such a rapid rate there's bound to be a 'think tank' pondering on how to update the licencing structure. With the rise of iPlayer and so on I imagine the few B&W licence holders are of little concern.
To be fair, I wouldn't have liked to write the rules regarding what you can and can't use!
Glyn

[Brigham]

You need a TV licence to 'do' something. It differs from, for instance, a gun licence, where you need the licence to possess something, rather than just to use it.
The TV situation can only work in a totally honest society. If a significant portion of the population can justify 'getting away with it', then more draconian measures start to appear, to the detriment of all.

[Boater Sam]

There is always an element of "getting away with it but consider this.

Tommy lives on a boat, inland, has no fixed address, does everything he can on line. The canal authority, bank, insurance, National Savings, eBay, Paypal etc. are happy to deal with him this way.
He has no vehicle, no gun licence. He is never in one place for more than 14 days to comply with his boat licence.

TV licence? Why should he be concerned if he downloads the odd program off ITV, Channel 5 etc?

Why should he be concerned if he downloads the odd program off ITV, Channel 5

'tis only BBC downloads/streaming that need a license (OK I cut the "etc." off the end). Personally I would be happy to pay the 140 odd quid for BBC Radio alone, but don't have to. What gets my goat is "their" assumption that everyone has a telly and you have to prove yourself innocent, rather contrary to UK law. There are some quite funny websites about not having a TV license.

As I have said earlier I have a TV licence, I would pay double not to get adverts on non BBC channels.

[HamishBoxer]

Re adverts,I hate them too so I record non BBC progs and then have control to scant through them.

[julie_m]

Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell

What gets my goat is "their" assumption that everyone has a telly and you have to prove yourself innocent, rather contrary to UK law.

An, yes, someone else who remembers those quaint, old-fashioned concepts such as "innocent unless proved guilty", "mens rea" and "double jeopardy", that were just making it far too hard to get a conviction. Everybody is guilty of something, after all (you could just about get banged up for breathing, since it contains 0carbon dioxide -- a noxious pollutant -- and it's a necessary bodily function).

During my years living without a TV set, I had a few letters from the licensing people -- and I gave back as good as I got. One time, I said they were noticing that I never paid for goods in a certain shop and drawing the erroneous conclusion that I must have been stealing from there .....

[Refugee]

We gave up the TV seven years ago.
They changed the rules to allow more adverts even when we were talking about getting rid of the TV.
We were beginning to leave it switched off because we can't be bothered to sit through a number of long running things that are all plastered all over the daily papers anyway.
For what we did actually watch we could buy a boxed set cheaper if we did not have blog sites on the web.

[bluepilot]

Originally Posted by julie_m

During my years living without a TV set, I had a few letters from the licensing people -- and I gave back as good as I got.

I have a house in England which is rented out. A few years ago it was empty for a few months. When I finally collected the post there was a whole series of letters warning "the occupier" that he hadn't got a TV license. They got more and more threatening, the font got larger and larger and the letters acquired more and more red text, red borders etc., finally threatening me that unless they heard from me within a week they would send the inspectors. By the time I got the letters the week had long since passed. I had to smile at how the inspectors had probably wasted their time visiting an empty house.

In Germany things are even more draconian. Once you have a TV it's almost impossible to not pay for a license again. If you tell the dreaded GEZ that you no longer have the TV they won't believe you. TVs don't just disappear so it must be somewhere and has to have a license. If you tell them you gave it to someone else then they demand to know who. If you take it to the local dump and get written confirmation that you have thrown it away you may be lucky but more likely than not they will claim that you must nevertheless still have a radio somewhere such as in your car which you still have to license. I solved the problem by moving to France.

[David G4EBT]

The letters threatening to 'send the inspectors' are just kidology.

The 'Inspectors' - with or without a so called 'detector van' - cannot prove an offence without the admission from the person who answers the door. The enforcement officers will know from their records that there is no licence in existence for a TV, but they don't have powers of entry - they can only enter the premises with the agreement of the occupant. If the occupant simply gives a 'no comment' reply to all questions, the enforcement officers don't even have a clue who they are talking to.

A statement from an enforcement officer that a detector van indicated that a TV was in use at the premises may satisfy the officers that a TV was in use, but would be insufficient in law to prove a case to the criminal standard 'beyond reasonable doubt' and wouldn't be submitted as evidence to seek to prove a case.

I'm certainly not condoning licence evasion - I'm simply telling it like it is. Ultimately the present licence regime is unsustainable. There are countless examples on YouTube of civilian enforcement officers being given the runaround by anarchic 'Artful Dodgers' who know how the criminal justice system works, and who watch TV without a licence & with impunity, disregarding all attempts to bring them to justice. The cases that find their way to court, are where the occupant admits guilt.

Back to the original comments about the Outer Hebrides. It clearly wouldn't be cost effective to check whether some of those who claim to use only a B&W TV actually have a colour one and hence are licence evaders. The loss of revenue will be marginal and the cost of investigating and trying to secure convictions would be disproportionate.

[julie_m]

It would have been that much simpler if they just scrambled the BBC transmissions and required a viewing card -- no payment, no pictures, and all without any need for poison-pen letters, bully-boy enforcement tactics and general ill feeling. Of course this alters the payment model from per-address to per-set; but as long as it worked similarly to the old, analogue Sky cards (cards fully interchangeable, decoding can be done at time of recording or playback), then one card could be moved between sets and recorders as required, so this need not be unnecessarily onerous.

Of course, that would have required everyone to get a new TV receiver -- or at least, the bit that does the actual receiving, which could potentially produce an output that an old set could display. Exactly like the digital switchover did, not so long ago, in fact .....

[kalee20]

Probably true, but how would scrambling the transmissions so making the possession of a (paid-for) viewing card, cater for the b/w or colour payees, which is the subject of this thread?

Keeping on-topic!

[bluepilot]

I assume that it would be quite easy to arrange for the decoder to descramble only the b/w bits of the signal if you'd only paid for a b/w licence.

[AC/HL]

Originally Posted by electronicskip

Does anyone here have a Black and White tv licence?

We seem to have fallen into the usual trap when touching on the subject. It would appear that no-one has a permanent monochrome only licence, and only one a temporary one, for tennis which seems appropriate. Government policy and strategies for licence evasion are outside our remit.