Colour TV license

[StepOne]

Hi,

With all the stuff in the news about the 7,000 still only paying for a black and white TV license. I was wondering, since there is no analogue signal any more, if you genuinely want to watch a black and white TV you would need to somehow connect it to a digital box. But, since the digital box can receive colour signals then wouldn't you have to pay for a colour TV license anyway?

Cheers,
StepOne

[didds]

I can only surmise that its to do with the "end experience" - it may be colour in, but its B&W out only.

In the same way that in the days of analogue. presumably the analogue signal contained all the colour information - but a B&W TV could only display it as B&W (OK, monochrome!)

didds

[AF62]

I can only surmise that its to do with the "end experience" - it may be colour in, but its B&W out only.

Apparently so - https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/ ... tv-licence

[StepOne]

Does anyone know the actual answer though?

I did find a link on the tvlicensing website which said that if you have a B&W tv linked to a set-top box which can record, then you have to pay a colour license because the recordings are in colour.

"A black and white TV Licence is only valid if you use a digital box that can’t record TV programmes" from this link;

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if- ... cence-top3

So it sounds as though you can use a set-top box which can't record with a B&W tv and still buy a black and white license (even though the box can receive colour signals).

It would be great if some of the journalists writing about this press release today had actually bothered to go out and find some of these people to see the real reason why they still watch black and white. I guess that quite a few are either

- dodging the colour license
- watching iplayer etc without realising they have to pay for that
- are deceased, or moved in to a care home or with relatives and continue to pay for a license they don't use
- using a set-top box with recording facilities, so technically breaking the law even though they can only watch in black and white. E.g. BT youview box.

StepOne

[didds]

I did find a link on the tvlicensing website which said that if you have a B&W tv linked to a set-top box which can record, then you have to pay a colour license because the recordings are in colour.

Hmmm... presumably that was also true of anybody back in analogue days that recorded programs on a video recorder...


interesting...

didds

[XFool]

The thing that puzzles me is: How many B&W TVs had a SCART socket?

That said, there are some digital converters that plug directly into the Band IV/V TV aerial socket. Ditto VCRs.

[csearle]

Moderator Message:
All off-topic posts removed. Please try to address only the OP's question, thanks.

[wheypat]

I knew a group of students who had a colour TV but a b/w license as it was cheaper, and as far as any of us could work out there was no way for them to detect if you had a colour set or b/w, so maybe it's just people gaming the system?

[rhialto]

I knew a group of students who had a colour TV but a b/w license as it was cheaper, and as far as any of us could work out there was no way for them to detect if you had a colour set or b/w, so maybe it's just people gaming the system?

With a CRT television it's possible to tell whether it's colour or black and white, the electromagnetic emissions are different.