Topic: Tigers!

[Najemikon]

Here in the UK, we have to pay a licence fee to legally watch TV. The money goes to the BBC and in exchange they give us no commercials and David Attenborough. On tonights evidence, that deal has been justified again. This programme is amazing!

Tiger - Spy in the Jungle

The basic idea of trained effalumps lugging expensive camera equipment is as brilliant as it is bonkers. It works really well and some of the footage captured is astonishing. Check out the video clips on the link above.

[DJ Doena]

In germany we also have to pay a fee, the GEZ fee. It goes to the public TV and radio stations.

For this we get a programme interrupted with advertisement, spiced up with product placement and every show is "presented by ...". And no one under 60 really wants to watch it.

And if you don't pay your fee there are free agents that check whether you actually have a TV. They have practically no more rights than the average salesperson but they try to impose a figure of authority.

That's why many refer to this organization as GEZtapo.

[Najemikon]

That isn't fair. A lot here don't like paying a fee, because it's antiquated and so many others are subscription based as well, which are fair comments. But at least we get an accountable service that doesn't have to advertise. There's nothing like this on the commercial channels, and from what I hear the BBC productions like it are world renowned, so I know some of my money is being spent wisely.

Actually Top Gear come in for a lot of flak because they don't spend it wisely, but I love them for it!

We get the TV Detector vans driving around to catch unlicensed watchers, but I think there would be riots if we got a service like yours.

[DJ Doena]

Actually if something interesting is shown by the public stations, it's usually a BBC production, so yes it is spent wisely.

[DJ Doena]

We get the TV Detector vans driving around to catch unlicensed watchers

That's one of the fairy tales that our GEZ-man use to tell that they have scanned the block and found a running TV in my flat.

That's urban legend at best.

And even if they would exist, with the spreading of plasma and LCD TVs they would getting useless.

[Najemikon]

True, to a point. But the vans do exist, there just aren't very many of them by all accounts. They detect the oscillating frequency, so in theory it doesn't matter what type of TV you have or even what sort of connection. At some point a tuner will be involved and it's that little bugger that the detector can pick up.

I think what they actually do is look at the database of licence payers and monitor houses where people don't have one, rather than drive around with a radar.

[Achim]

Here in the UK, we have to pay a licence fee to legally watch TV. The money goes to the BBC and in exchange they give us no commercials and David Attenborough. On tonights evidence, that deal has been justified again. This programme is amazing!

Tiger - Spy in the Jungle

The basic idea of trained effalumps lugging expensive camera equipment is as brilliant as it is bonkers. It works really well and some of the footage captured is astonishing. Check out the video clips on the link above.

I liked the clip where the monkeys explored the log-cam...

I like good animal shows. And after seeing a few episodes of Planet Earth in hi-def I can say that the added resolution can add a lot to the picture. If such stuff comes out on Blu Ray, I may buy it.