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TV detector van

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Re: TV detector van

#21

Post by DanBC »

wyldfire wrote: post #8

While reading I thought, "for sure we will get to the part of the article where the British realized their folly and discontinued the licensing." But that part never came. Brits: is this for real, does this still exist? Do you pay a license to use your TV? Is it only for OTA programming or using the device in general?

You need a licence if you watch live TV as it's broadcast, or if you watch BBC iPlayer catchup content.

You need a licence for any device that you watch live tv as it's broadcast. You need a licence to watch live tv, no matter where it's broadcast from.

The wording of the law says "installed or used to receive", so in theory you need a licence if you have eg a tv plugged into an aerial. They don't prosecute those cases any more.

You don't need a licence if you're not watching live tv. So you can watch all the ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 catchup as much as you like. Or netflix, amazon, HBO, etc services.

People pay for it because the BBC is generally pretty good. It's stuck in a weird political landscape where some MPs want the BBC to be independent and not be funded by a licence fee, but those same MPs refuse to allow the BBC to operate commercially.

A longer term plan for the BBC would be welcome, and that's probably going to be a subscription service at some point.

Re: TV detector van

#22

Post by stronglikedan »

tantalor wrote: post #16
agurk wrote: post #7

I lived in a flat in England in the early 2000s which kept getting letters from the BBC saying we didn't have a TV licence. The letters were sometimes more threatening for a period, then sometimes more reconciliatory. They were also running TV adverts at the time claiming they had detector vans about, and if you didn't have a licence you'd be caught. I did some research at the time, and it seemed that evidence from a…

> evidence from a detector van had never been submitted How could it be, if the mechanism behind the detector is not made public? Prosecutor: This machine says you are guilty. Defendant: How does that machine work? Prosecutor: You aren't allowed to know. Defendant: ??? Judge: Case dismissed.

Not the US.

Re: TV detector van

#23

Post by ukoki »

wyldfire wrote: post #8

While reading I thought, "for sure we will get to the part of the article where the British realized their folly and discontinued the licensing." But that part never came. Brits: is this for real, does this still exist? Do you pay a license to use your TV? Is it only for OTA programming or using the device in general?

It's only for OTA programming or to watch BBC online streaming services. You don't need one for eg watching Netflix or playing games.

Re: TV detector van

#24

Post by joezydeco »

dsr_ wrote: post #15

The warrant revealed that a BBC contractor had used an "optical detector" to reveal the possible presence of a TV.[10] The warrant stated that: "the optical detector in the detector van uses a large lens to collect that light and focus it on to an especially sensitive device, which converts fluctuating light signals into electrical signals, which can be electronically analysed. If a receiver is being used to watch br…

I would think the stray light from a CRT strobing at 50Hz could be picked up by a photodiode and some amplification.

The point of the 'detection' was to just see if a TV was in operation and not to see what was being watched.

Re: TV detector van

#25

Post by excalibur »

noodlesUK wrote: post #13

This is such nonsense. In my opinion the BBC should be paid for by a proper tax, as an informed public benefits everyone, or they should just give up on calling it a license. The people going around houses just send threatening letters, and act as though they have some right to enter your home and inspect it (they don't). They go around terrorising people who don't know their rights, but don't watch TV anyway. I rout…

The British government has a legal obligation to conduct all business in the least sensible manner available. It's in the Magna Carta.

Re: TV detector van

#26

Post by DanBC »

saagarjha wrote: post #3

How do these work? Is a TV somehow different than a large monitor?

No, a tv isn't that much different from a large monitor.

In the past when we had CRTs and poor EMF shielding TV detector vans claimed to use "van eck phreaking" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking.

They had a couple of actual working vans, but these were purely for technical demonstrations.

The rest of the vans were labelled up and they'd drive around to places that didn't have a licence (For a while TV Licencing had the largest civilian database in the UK) and knock on doors.

Some of the "inspectors" used, and still use, pretty unpleasant techniques.

I'm generally in favour of the licence. I don't need one right now, and I've found it easy to get the letters to stop (I fill out an online form), but some friends get letters almost fortnightly. They have mental ill-health, and they find the letters distressing. It's annoying to me that TVL / Capita aren't better at supressing those letters.

Re: TV detector van

#27

Post by gnode »

dsr_ wrote: post #15

The warrant revealed that a BBC contractor had used an "optical detector" to reveal the possible presence of a TV.[10] The warrant stated that: "the optical detector in the detector van uses a large lens to collect that light and focus it on to an especially sensitive device, which converts fluctuating light signals into electrical signals, which can be electronically analysed. If a receiver is being used to watch br…

It's not a video camera in the conventional sense, necessarily.

You could also collect unfocused light emissions, such at those reflecting from walls and ceiling, and correlate their luminance and chroma fluctuations over time with those of live TV. This would not intelligibly perceive non TV light signals, and so be less of a privacy concern. Additionally this would work if the TV's image is not visible.

Re: TV detector van

#28

Post by _-___________-_ »

djmobley wrote: post #9

Watching television without a licence in the UK is actually a criminal (rather than civil) offence, and hundreds of thousands of purple are convicted each year of the offence. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/24/in-court-non...

To be clear, this only applies to television that is paid for by the license (BBC etc, including streaming via iPlayer). I have a television and use it only to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and am thus not required to pay the license. Which goes to show how ridiculous these vans are, since they can't tell where you're getting the content you're watching.

Re: TV detector van

#29

Post by rtkwe »

oxidising wrote: post #12
wyldfire wrote: post #8

While reading I thought, "for sure we will get to the part of the article where the British realized their folly and discontinued the licensing." But that part never came. Brits: is this for real, does this still exist? Do you pay a license to use your TV? Is it only for OTA programming or using the device in general?

We pay the licence fee to fund the BBC. They make some amazing documentaries (Planet Earth, Blue Planet etc). They also have radio stations, all advert free. Being advert free is rare these days.

That's fine, a well funded public broadcaster is a great idea. The question is why in the world is it done as a license fee instead of as a much simpler to implement tax or a subscription where the OTA broadcasts are encrypted and a fee is paid to maintain the ability to decrypt.

Re: TV detector van

#30

Post by arprocter »

agurk wrote: post #7

I lived in a flat in England in the early 2000s which kept getting letters from the BBC saying we didn't have a TV licence. The letters were sometimes more threatening for a period, then sometimes more reconciliatory. They were also running TV adverts at the time claiming they had detector vans about, and if you didn't have a licence you'd be caught. I did some research at the time, and it seemed that evidence from a…

I believe when you buy a TV retailers are required to take down your address

I bought one once and evidently they managed to typo the house number, so our neighbour down the street who didn't have a TV kept getting the 'we know you have a TV but no license threatening letters

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