peter Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 Hi I wonder if anyone can help. I want to be able to take a SCART signal from a DVD player, and input it onto my laptop. My laptop has USB, PCMCIA and Firewire (1394) inputs. Can anyone suggest a product which will enable me to view the signal? As a student, I don't want to go down the TV card route, as I don't want to have to buy a Tv licence if I'm not going to be watching TV. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 Peter. Not easy I'm afraid. Probably you could go out and buy a cheap camcorder and use that as a cheep DV Bridge but that could cost you much more than a TV licence. What do you want to do with the DVD's ? Edit them or view them? You can buy a firewire DVD drive from Dabs or anyone for between £100-200 would that do?? James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter Posted December 12, 2003 Author Share Posted December 12, 2003 I'm being greedy - hoping to use the 5.1 surround system by playing DVDs on the dvd player, but as I have no TV licence I have no monitor for viewing the video part of the DVD... hence the PC idea (I have a DVD drive in my laptop, but obviously thats not 5.1) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 OK do you have a spare desktop monitor? I've got a device that works as a scan converter - converting composite to SVGA reasonably well that cost me £30-£40? It's also got a switch in it so I use it in theatre on my SFX PC monitor to switch between 4 backstage cameras as well. If not then a 17" monitor and this box will still cost less than 1 years TV licence!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 I don't want to have to buy a Tv licence if I'm not going to be watching TV. You don't have to buy a TV license if you are not going to watch TV. It is perfectly legitimate to have a TV card or even a Television in room without using them to watch TV. I have a Television which I use as a monitor for editing video and watching DVD's but I don't watch TV and so I don't need a license. Another though - can you not get a 5.1 PCMCIA sound card for the laptop and then just play the DVD on the laptop? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter Posted December 13, 2003 Author Share Posted December 13, 2003 You don't have to buy a TV license if you are not going to watch TV. It is perfectly legitimate to have a TV card or even a Television in room without using them to watch TV.Really? I'd always understood it as if you had any equipment capable of receiving a TV signal then you had to pay the licence fee. Obviously as a student I don't want to be landed with a £1k fine for not watching TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 According to the TV Licence website you do not need a TV licence if your TV equipment is only used for For closed circuit monitoring For watching pre-recorded videos As a monitor for computers BUT if you install equipment capable of receiving or recording broadcast television programmes or Ceefax/Teletext?OR A PC with a broadcast card? then you have to pay up So if you install the TV and rip out the RF modulator then it is no longer capable of recieving broadcast TV programmes. If you don't then it is. (Disclaimer - I'm not a Lawyer - this is my interpritation of what it says on the . TV Licencing Site James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James C Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 James - should you really be saying all this? Don't your wages come directly from TV licence sales? ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 Hi, As far as I know, the "ripping out the tuner" bit is an urban legend. I would agree with ace's view that you only need a licence if you actually use the equipment to receive TV programs. What it is capable of is irrelevant. I have seen TVs and VCRs in businesses with stickers saying "this equipment must not be used to receive television programmes". They're only been needed for playing pre-recorded training tapes and no license has been obtained. But it obviously would be worth contacting the licensing people to find out the exact situation. The info on the web site isn't 100% clear. Dave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 It may be cheaper to get a 5.1 USB soundcard and buy some 5.1 capable software actually. 5.1 USB soundcards start at about £40, and the software to play 5.1 DVDs is £30 at most (the one that supports my hardware decoder is £20) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted December 14, 2003 Share Posted December 14, 2003 James - should you really be saying all this? Don't your wages come directly from TV licence sales? No - Actualy none of it does... None of my pay - or any of the income of the Company I work for comes directly from the Licence Fee The Corporation Owns the company I work for. and the Corporation gets the Licence fee. (But then again they are our biggest customer and they do own us...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter Posted December 15, 2003 Author Share Posted December 15, 2003 Just had an official reply from the TV Licencing people: A television licence is required if you use television receiving equipment to record and/or receive certain television programme services. Television receiving equipment could be a television, videocassette recorder, PCTV (computer with facility to receive television programmes), or a television card for a computer. This means a licence is needed to receive BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5, digital television, other terrestrial services, satellite television (from a place in the United Kingdom) and cable television. If a DVD player is used to record a broadcast signal then a licence will be required as it comes under the same legislation as a videocassette recorder.If your television equipment is used to receive or record television programmes, you should buy a licence at once. However, if your equipment is not used to receive or record television programmes, please let me know your address. I will then make sure our records are changed to show you do not need a television licence. I should advise you to make sure that the television and video are not tuned to receive television broadcasts. It is also advisable to ensure the equipment is not connected to any aerials. One of our Field Officers may visit your address to check that the equipment being used does not receive broadcast signals(my bold)So thats good then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 there is this thing by hauppage I think, called win tv PVR, you connect it to your scrate and then to your laptop by usb.... you can get loads of them, its for video editing, pinnacle dpo some usb donlges, you just use the composite output on that and connect it to the dongle. as regarding the tv license thing, as you have a reply from an actual rep, I'd say I agree, a laptop is fine, as long as you have to actual way of viewing tv on it, all your doing is watching a dvd, so they cant bust you for that... if they did, it would be stingy. my boss has a telly, but he hasnt got a proper ariel installed by his landlord, so he dont pay for a license, and all he does is connect his pc to it and watches dvd's and video's that have been recorded at my house :unsure: (easy way to get round it, please inform me if that is illegal, to record videos then play them back, technically your not watching it "live") matt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 easy way to get round it, please inform me if that is illegal, to record videos then play them back, technically your not watching it "live"Technically you're still breaking at least one law, that of copyright infingement. It's illegal to record a TV show/DVD and lend it to someone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey2005 Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 You don't have to buy a TV license if you are not going to watch TV. It is perfectly legitimate to have a TV card or even a Television in room without using them to watch TV.Really? I'd always understood it as if you had any equipment capable of receiving a TV signal then you had to pay the licence fee. Obviously as a student I don't want to be landed with a £1k fine for not watching TV.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hiya... well from my experience regarding this matter ie regarding the reception of television signals and the related apparatus. If an appliance has the ability to not only detect, but also decode a television signal, then a licence should be paid for. If however the equipment cannot recieve television signals and cannot decode either, then I personanally can't see any room to argue the case. In the latter case it should be safe to use without a licence. However theres also another side to the arguement ** laughs out loud **.... this is no matter what electrical appliance you own the chances are it recieves a multitude of electromagnetic signals every second..... though obviously can only decode the signals that it was designed to decode... then in this case a licence is required. To the best of my knowledge this is correct. The TV licence site does sorta back this up.... hope this above helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.