Huge said:
On 2017-01-21, Eiron wrote:
On 21/01/2017 16:51, Huge wrote:
On 2017-01-21, Iain Churches wrote:

[31 lines snipped]

A pal of mine in the UK told me earlier today that the
standard TV licence is now UKP145

Actually £145.50.

and payable in
advance.

It always was.

Can that be correct?

Absolute bargain. The Beeb has to be paid for somehow and I'd rather
that than advertising.

The BBC produces absolute ****e.

Sigh. I can't be arsed to argue with someone who "thinks" in absolutes.

*plonk*

The bit about carrying advertising for its own products is right, though,
and I'd rather it was free of adverts.

But I only listen to its radio output, so I don't contribute to its upkeep
either way.


--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

In article ,
Richard Robinson wrote:
The bit about carrying advertising for its own products is right, though,
and I'd rather it was free of adverts.

I'd rather not have adverts in the cinema either. But, like the BBC, they
only run them before the programme starts. Not several times within it.

But I only listen to its radio output, so I don't contribute to its
upkeep either way.

Very surprising the numbers who claim to never watch TV. ;-)

--
*I wished the buck stopped here, as I could use a few*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) said:
In article ,
Richard Robinson wrote:
The bit about carrying advertising for its own products is right, though,
and I'd rather it was free of adverts.

I'd rather not have adverts in the cinema either. But, like the BBC, they
only run them before the programme starts. Not several times within it.

True. It increases the likelihood of my turning it off rather than seeing
what comes next ...

But I only listen to its radio output, so I don't contribute to its
upkeep either way.

Very surprising the numbers who claim to never watch TV. ;-)

Not me. Going on the last 20 years' average (ono), I expect to watch it for
about an hour a year, while visiting friends who are into it. I have seen
Big Brother, $Somewhere's Got Talent, Springwatch ... More than "never",
anyway.

I've met people who tell me it's "fashionable¨ to claim not to own one, at
the moment. I wouldn't know, these fashion things change so fast ...

I *did* own a telly, once. I had it plugged^Hsoldered into the output of a
Sinclair Spectrum.


--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

In article ,
Richard
Robinson wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) said:


Very surprising the numbers who claim to never watch TV. ;-)

Not me. Going on the last 20 years' average (ono), I expect to watch it
for about an hour a year, while visiting friends who are into it. I have
seen Big Brother, $Somewhere's Got Talent, Springwatch ... More than
"never", anyway.

Seems a pity to have never been able to watch The Proms, or items like the
performance of operas like The Barber of Seville, or ballets like Sleeping
Beauty. (The latter items, along with the Vienna New Year Concert, all
available in the last few weeks from the BBC.)

It's true that the sound quality doesn't always match the 320k aac from
Radio 3 via iPlayer. But the 50fps video you can get (if you do it in time)
of such things seems pretty enjoyable to me.

All that said, yes, listening to sound-only can be very enjoyable. Depends
what kind of experience you fancy. Having the choice seems good to me.

Personally, I think my 50p a day is well spent just to get such things.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Jim Lesurf said:
In article , Richard
Robinson wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) said:

Very surprising the numbers who claim to never watch TV. ;-)

Not me. Going on the last 20 years' average (ono), I expect to watch it
for about an hour a year, while visiting friends who are into it. I have
seen Big Brother, $Somewhere's Got Talent, Springwatch ... More than
"never", anyway.

Seems a pity to have never been able to watch The Proms, or items like the
performance of operas like The Barber of Seville, or ballets like Sleeping
Beauty. (The latter items, along with the Vienna New Year Concert, all
available in the last few weeks from the BBC.)

It's true that the sound quality doesn't always match the 320k aac from
Radio 3 via iPlayer. But the 50fps video you can get (if you do it in
time) of such things seems pretty enjoyable to me.

That doesn't bother me much. High quality is to be had when possible, but if
it's a cruddy recording of worthwhile music, I'll listen and enjoy.

All that said, yes, listening to sound-only can be very enjoyable. Depends
what kind of experience you fancy. Having the choice seems good to me.

Sound-only, yes. If I go to a live performance it's "I love work, I can
watch people doing it for hours", but it's not often I find the visuals
important (is this maybe age-related ? I started listening to music before
the pop video became a Thing).

Or maybe it's just me, I don't really Do videos or films much, either.

Personally, I think my 50p a day is well spent just to get such things.

Plus, in my case, the once-off cost of buying the equipment.

Yes, I'm aware I'm missing things I'd probably like. But the same is true of
many other possibilities. I just don't know how people find the time for it
....

--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

In article ,
Richard
Robinson wrote:
It's true that the sound quality doesn't always match the 320k aac
from Radio 3 via iPlayer. But the 50fps video you can get (if you do
it in time) of such things seems pretty enjoyable to me.

That doesn't bother me much. High quality is to be had when possible,
but if it's a cruddy recording of worthwhile music, I'll listen and
enjoy.

cf below.

All that said, yes, listening to sound-only can be very enjoyable.
Depends what kind of experience you fancy. Having the choice seems
good to me.

Sound-only, yes. If I go to a live performance it's "I love work, I can
watch people doing it for hours", but it's not often I find the visuals
important (is this maybe age-related ? I started listening to music
before the pop video became a Thing).

The visuals can be useful for an opera or ballet. I confess I generally had
little interest in either *until* I could watch them in decent quality as
well as having the sound in decent quality. To me, that made a significant
difference even though I prefer closing my eyes when listening to other
kinds of music which have no specified relationship to anything that it
accompanies.

I stopped buying DVDs of classical music when they all went to 'NTSC' which
looks much poorer than even 'PAL' ( both labels being misleading, but they
are the terms used on the DVDs.) Blue Rays or HD recordings (or see below)
can be rather better.


Or maybe it's just me, I don't really Do videos or films much, either.

I'm happy watching old films. Even if the sound quality is poor. Content is
what really matters.


Personally, I think my 50p a day is well spent just to get such things.

Plus, in my case, the once-off cost of buying the equipment.

get_iplayer is your friend. If you have a computer with a decent display
you can get a lot of what the BBC broadcast in quite decent vision and
sound. For some years now, that has been my main route for BBC TV and Radio
3.

We do use a TV set as a display in the living room to watch AV. But nothing
fancy. However the bulk of what we watch is now fetched using get_iplayer.

That said, the 'real' hi-fi is in another room with no large screen. Just a
small monitor out of the line of vision when listening to audio.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Jim Lesurf said:
In article ,
Richard Robinson wrote:

Sound-only, yes. If I go to a live performance it's "I love work, I can
watch people doing it for hours", but it's not often I find the visuals
important (is this maybe age-related ? I started listening to music
before the pop video became a Thing).

The visuals can be useful for an opera or ballet. I confess I generally had
little interest in either *until* I could watch them in decent quality as
well as having the sound in decent quality. To me, that made a significant
difference even though I prefer closing my eyes when listening to other
kinds of music which have no specified relationship to anything that it
accompanies.

Content is what really matters.

Hear hear !


Personally, I think my 50p a day is well spent just to get such things.

Plus, in my case, the once-off cost of buying the equipment.

get_iplayer is your friend. If you have a computer with a decent display
you can get a lot of what the BBC broadcast in quite decent vision and
sound. For some years now, that has been my main route for BBC TV and Radio
3.

Well, yes; it's a lack of motivation rather than ability.


--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

Huge said:
On 2017-01-22, Jim Lesurf wrote:

Content is what really matters.

Precisely. Unless the reproduction is so poor that it is distracting.

If it's an LP I've known for a long time, I can find a missing scratch
distracting :-)


--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html