Brits refuse to pull plug on B&W TVs! - Page 4 - Videokarma.org TV - Video

Sam Cogley · #46 06-04-2010, 12:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pugs5061

Electroking said "Yes, and the fee for a B/W set is cheaper. Nothing wrong with that, you have to pay a fee for owning a car, right?"

In the US. we do not have to pay a fee to own a car. If any politician ever put it this way he'd be out so fast it is not even funny. We pay a registration to drive our cars on public roads. If I paid to own vehicles I'd be broke. I don't drive them on public roads.

The reason people stay away from using the word ebay is simple. Audiokarma has very very strict rules about trying to sell items on their forum. If you sell items on ebay and are talking about similar items on the forum you avoid the word ebay to make sure that there is no conflict of interest or misunderstanding whatsoever. Another reason is that personally I hate that f@**@*@ company even though so much of what I do is tied to it.

I'm sure you pay property taxes on those cars.

ppppenguin · #47 06-04-2010, 12:55 AM

Just to clarify.

In the UK we do not have to pay anything to OWN a car or TV. We do have to pay to USE one. You can have as many cars as you like and if they are not on the public roads you don't have to pay a bean. In a nice gesture to the classic car folk, all vehicles earlier than 1973 are free to use on the road.

The problem with TVs is that the licensing authorities tend to assume you have a TV and send threatening letters if you don't have a licence. If you genuinely don't have TV it can be quite hard to get them off your back. The ultimate method would be to tell the to £$%$ off and let them take you to court.

The history of the licence fee is long and controversial. Originally the govenment took a hefty slice. This grdually reduced until now when the BBC gets the lot except for the cost of collection. We are now close to the point in a multichannel age where the licence fee is untenable as a means of funding the BBC. Unfortunately nobody has come up with a beter way. Maybe it's a bit like democracy - it's the worst possible system, except for all the others that have been tried.

Talking of democracy, Tom Lehrer wrote this in the 1960s.
http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/t/toml...nes185498.html

pugs5061 · #48 06-04-2010, 07:49 AM

The only property taxes I have are for land or real estate. Other parts of the US may be different but no other property tax. Now if I make money on any property(including cars) I am liable for an income tax. In the US this income is exempt on the primary home though up to a limit.

pugs5061 · #49 06-04-2010, 08:14 AM

Back to the point of the thread, ppenguin said what I was trying to elude to earlier. BBC is not the only game in town for channels in the UK. Is it fair for them to get the entire license fee when most people pay for dozens or hundreds of other channels just as they do in the US through private companies? The days of licensing this way are probably numbered if the government looks at it realistically(this is sometimes quite rare). The UK will probably go to a system more like the US where taxes are paid on the service that gives you the channels. Either cable, satelite, internet or whatever. The broadcast over the airwaves could be left in the dust? It really depends on how much they value the BBC going over the airwaves. MHO only, I'd like to hear what others think.

andy · #50 06-04-2010, 10:09 AM

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ppppenguin · #51 06-04-2010, 10:14 AM

In the UK there is a strong feeling against the US PBS model or any other scheme that would turn the BBC from a universal broadcaster into a "high brow" ghetto. Equally funding the BBC directly from government is disliked and we like our programmes without commercial breaks. That's why the licence fee lives on.

As for transmission methods, I'll be a bit controversial here and say that digital terrestrial is a complete waste of time and money. With a slightly longer changeover period we could have gone to satellite and cable as the only means of distribution with the internet coming up fast behind. No expensive transmitter re-engineering, no electricity bill for running them. The old folks with analogue TVs could be left happy as they are and will diminish in numbers anyway with time.

Our COFDM terrestrial TX system is a better engineering solution than the US one. It's inherently resistant to multipath though it does need more complex TX and RX. When the TX power is boosted after analogue switch off it should give pretty reliable reception. The source coding systems are another matter, as is how much you compress the signals to fit more in.

AUdubon5425 · #52 06-04-2010, 01:01 PM

I would be willing to pay a license fee if I never had to see some of the embarrassing and irritating commercials again - or if they at least brought back the television code of standards.

ppppenguin · #53 06-04-2010, 01:41 PM

You can probably get BBC World on satellite. Unfortunately it carries ads.

andy · #54 06-04-2010, 08:13 PM

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Carmine · #55 06-05-2010, 11:46 PM

Wow. I am stunned to see how many of my "fellow Americans" WANT to start paying another intrusive BS government tax.

I wish all the people trying to turn the US into Europe would realize they are free to return to the land their ancestors left, likely because of an intrusive government!

"I don't like commercials, boo-hoo!!!" Government save me!

My cousin moved to Manchester and told me she couldn't stand the TV over there BECAUSE IT WAS FILLED WITH CRAPPY US RE-RUNS OF "FRIENDS". We got to watch that crap for free a decade ago!

Oh yeah, here's a shot of me watching British TV for free! lol

AUdubon5425 · #56 06-06-2010, 12:41 AM

Well, I was being sarcastic. Except the part about the TV code. We don't even try to watch CBS/NBC/ABC in prime time when my stepdaughter is home. Thank goodness for the VCR.

David Roper · #57 06-06-2010, 01:35 AM

And thank goodness for Louis Quatorze armoires: Disney flicks on the shelf, porno in the locked drawer.

andy · #58 06-06-2010, 12:02 PM

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Kiwick · #59 06-07-2010, 03:51 PM

Here in Italy we have to pay a 109-euro fee for the OWNERSHIP of a TV set, luckily once you pay that fee you're free to own as many sets as you want.
It doesn't matter whether the set is analog or digital, color or B/W, working or broken, hooked up or stored in your basement or used only to watch only DVDs or VHS tapes, you have to pay as long as you own it.

We also had a cheaper B/W fee but it was removed in about 1993

What sucks is that we pay a TV fee but since about 10 years, we have to watch tons of commercials breaks too!

We also pay for car ownership, we have to pay for each car we own including collectable cars (although there's a discount on 25+ years old vintage cars)
That's why you don't see many car collectors with large fleets here.

There's still a fair number of B/W sets in use here as i still find them from time to time, mostly in mountanous fringe areas where it's quite difficul to get color TV to work properly

I'm going to have analog TV until 2012 here although it's already been switched off in favour of DTV in most large cities like Rome, Milan and Naples.

Cruiseomatic · #60 06-13-2010, 06:44 AM

They need to find a way to have LESS commercials on ALL television distribution systems. Last night I relized why people steal cable. There is 10 minutes of actual programming and the rest is stupid,de-grading,"E.D." drugs, tampons,make-up,car lots, "Late night one-night stands", and whatever else you can think of to fill it in. $100 for the service which is full of 20 minutes out of 30 minute shows full of interuptions and worthless programming. Its not worth it. Why pay for it when there is more than enough commercials to pay for itself? Then they cry and say "networks" want more money? GET REAL! If it were OTA broadcasts then thats fine, But cable or sat.? No, Don't think so. What happened to standards? Ethics? Decensey? I just watch the news on OTA and the rest is on VCR or dvd.