
Why do pub TVs have a pint glass in the corner? - georgecalm
http://www.lbc.co.uk/why-do-pub-tvs-have-a-pint-glass-in-the-corner-7155
======
zwischenzug
I worked with Sky broadcast computing staff back in the day. Apparently they
had some massively expensive plan for enforcement technology.

During one meeting someone said 'why not just put a glass in the corner of the
streamed image to indicate it's licensed for a pub?'

Job done.

~~~
4k
Simple solutions are often the best ones.

Out of curiosity, how (if at all) was that person rewarded for saving Millions
for the company?

~~~
staticfish
Hah, now you're being funny.

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wodenokoto
Interesting, but a picture of said pint glass would be appropriate for such an
article.

~~~
cadab
Heres an example:
[http://up.metropol247.co.uk/davidlees/daybreak_sky_sports.pn...](http://up.metropol247.co.uk/davidlees/daybreak_sky_sports.png)

~~~
Shorel
Looks like a cup of coffee to me.

This is what I had in mind:
[http://factoryjoe.s3.amazonaws.com/emoticons/emoticon-0167-b...](http://factoryjoe.s3.amazonaws.com/emoticons/emoticon-0167-beer.gif)

~~~
billmalarky
But that's a mug, not a pint glass.

~~~
oh_sigh
Also a mug with a poorly poured beer

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EnderMB
I was talking about this to someone behind the bar once, and he also said that
the reason they chose a pint glass over some other icon was that it made
people more willing to buy a drink while watching the game. They'd
occasionally glance at the pint glass and think "better have a pint".

Not sure whether this is true or not, but it wouldn't surprise me if it had
this effect. It'd be interesting if someone else had heard this, or knew
whether this was true.

~~~
atomicUpdate
Why would a cable company care if you bought more beer?

~~~
djm_
I don't agree with the OPs reasoning but its cyclical in theory: a pub is not
going to buy a Sky subscription if it does not increase their sales.

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grahamel
Sky also add a number to the screen to help inspectors or to shut down
streaming [http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Archived-
Discussions/Strange-9-d...](http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Archived-
Discussions/Strange-9-digit-number-appearing-on-screen/td-p/5559)

~~~
mootothemax
_Sky also add a number to the screen to help inspectors or to shut down
streaming_

I believe this is mostly to stop streaming.

For years and years, Sky have had issues with people buying multiple
subscriptions to their sports packages, connecting the receivers to a bunch of
servers, and then _reselling access on commercial streaming sites_!

The big difficulty they've then had is identifying who's behind the streaming
site, and at the least, shutting down their stream.

The fun part is that - judging by the number of sites that remained in
operation for a good chunk of time - it _does_ appear possible to operate an
essentially anonymous business on the internet.

~~~
christop
I wonder how this is supposed to help Sky identify who the source is — it's a
satellite broadcast, so they presumably can't overlay a different number on
the screen for different subscribers?

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ibmthrowaway218
The number isn't in the broadcast signal, it's overlaid by the decoding box.
It's going to be a number tied to the unique viewing card number (which is
tied uniquely to a subscriber).

~~~
christop
Ah, that makes more sense, thanks.

I wonder how easily the firmware can be downgraded (or downgraded) to remove
that behaviour. Though as noted in the sibling thread, it's more likely easier
to crop the video output.

~~~
jamesbrownuhh
Distinctly non-trivial. The receiver software is cryptographically signed and
is heavily integrated with the conditional access system securing the
underlying broadcast.

I'm only aware of one time that a legitimate box was encouraged to run a
lightly-patched version of the software, and that involved a JTAG-type attack
on a specific model of set top box. I believe that lesson has been learned in
current models.

~~~
kuschku
In Germany, almost no one uses Sky, and those who do, almost completely run
patched boxes. It’s even easy to use one single subscription on thousands of
boxes at the same time.

(2012)

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kriro
Germany has this as well. Looks slightly different and I've never payed enough
attention to see if it changes. Interesting how the glass is localized :)

[https://planetofsports.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/38917790....](https://planetofsports.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/38917790.jpg?w=500)

~~~
junto
With prices of a monthly Sky subscription for venues ranging from 449 EUR to
1449 EUR [1], you can understand why Sky are keen to prevent the home
subscription being misused.

Notably, it is also not in their interests to have too many venues showing the
football games. That results in less home subscribers.

I often watch Champions League and Bundesliga football games in these sports
bars. I see no reason for a home Sky subscription. It is a complete rip-off.

[1]
[http://business.sky.de/sbs/cms/static/img/Einleger_Gastro_St...](http://business.sky.de/sbs/cms/static/img/Einleger_Gastro_Standard_D.pdf)

~~~
adventured
That seems incredibly expensive. In the US as a bar / restaurant you can get a
$80 package from DirecTV that covers just about everything but the league
owned channels.

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raverbashing
I think a lot of that pub subscription price goes to the rights owners, no?

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adventured
DISH and DirecTV, the two major US satellite operators, pay the individual
content networks a cut of the subscription for rights to broadcast. So for
example if your $80 package has ESPN in it, ESPN might be getting $5 of that.
Whereas common networks like ABC, NBC, TBS, CBS, TNT, Fox and similar might
only get $0.50.

For public viewing they scale it based on occupancy. So if your bar is likely
to have a viewer count of < 100 people, you'll fall into the normal tier. For
a maxed out package with 2000 possible viewers, you'll pay $175, or $425 if
you want all of the ESPN channels (Disney must be getting a huge cut of that
+$250).

~~~
_delirium
I wonder what keeps the American sports leagues (and/or ESPN) from charging
more for public-performance licenses? I can't imagine they're doing it out of
goodwill, so they must feel like they can't get UK-level fees out of bars.
Maybe carrying a particular league (or even sports at all) is not as much of a
"necessity" for American bars, so if they push it too much, bars will just say
no thanks? In much of the UK a pub really _has_ to have football, and usually
not just any football, but the local club's games (plus "big" games).

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scrollaway
What's amazing/amusing to me is a hacky technical solution that solves the
problem for "inspectors", instead of a solution that removes the need for any
inspector to inspect the TV. A good administration system would make it easy
to automatically check whether pub addresses use a business subscription.

~~~
felixthehat
Also amusing, these inspectors are paid to go to pubs to watch football
matches. Not a bad job.

~~~
JacobAldridge
I had a part-time job for a while inspecting cinema advertisements. The pay
was minuscule (I did it on the side of my full time work), but all it involved
was writing down the ads and previews in the order they were shown and noting
any reaction from the crowd (positive, negative etc).

My work was done when then feature started ... at which point, well, it would
be rude to get up and leave wouldn't it?

(We did have to get the manager's permission to stay for the show, but I was
never once knocked back. I'd usually buy a frozen drink, so I guess they got
something out of me.)

~~~
YokoZar
Doesn't it defeat the purpose a bit if they know you're there? Why not cloak
the inspection so you can catch the sort of fumbling of ads that happens when
you're not aware you're being watched?

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e-Minguez
Here in Spain, they show a B (as in bar), but also, they randomly put a banner
with some code related to the customer (pub), so if an internet stream shows
the code, they know who is the customer.

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christop
The sticker-on-screen hack seems a bit easy to detect.

I've always wondered why there isn't (or maybe there is?) a black market for a
wee box that takes the Sky box video output and overlays a pint glass icon in
the corner.

But I didn't know until this article that the pint glass volume and colour
changes each day; that would make it a lot tougher. Plus I guess the pint
glass isn't always shown, e.g. during adverts.

~~~
Varcht
Startup opportunity - Capture pint glass logo from commercial feed in real
time, Chroma key it, stream over internet to small overlay device, profit.

~~~
pdpi
A startup with an offering based entirely on making fraud easy. That's...
novel.

~~~
alpaps
but it's "disruptive" :-)

~~~
tonyblundell
Ask for forgiveness, not permission!

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neals
You know what this article needs? An image!

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nastygibbon
They sometimes fill them with different colours, too. Here is a link to a
picture. [http://goo.gl/ZDnSE0](http://goo.gl/ZDnSE0)

~~~
jmkni
I think that's just the red button indicator isn't it?

If you pressed 'Back Up' on the controller, it would disappear and you would
be left with the white overlay, unless I'm mistaken.

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newaccountfool
Interesting, a lot of pubs who can afford it simply get a satellite dish and a
subscription to a foreign channel. Saves them thousands a month and they get
all of the important matches. Although some commentary is in a foreign
language.

~~~
tonyblundell
My local did this, until he was caught, prosecuted and subsequently lost his
job/business and something like £30-40k IIRC.

~~~
newaccountfool
I know many who do this and Sky activly try to pressure the publicans to
purchase sky but can't do anything about it.

~~~
tonyblundell
Yeah this was in 07/08-ish - I think someone successfully challenged them in
court since.

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yitchelle
Strange the Sky did not approach one of the beer factories and ask for
"sponsorship"...:-)

~~~
dorward
Pubs tend to be owned by the breweries. I suspect there would be problems if
Sky wanted (for example) Greene King to start advertising Fuller's in their
pubs.

~~~
glyxbaer
I don't think it would be a problem.. there's plenty of beer ads during
footy...

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CatsoCatsoCatso
You'll probably also notice a small rectangle which appears in the top right
of the screen made up of moving black and white stripes.

This often indicates when an advert break is coming up, so it's pretty handy
to notice if you want a head start on getting to a likely-busy pub toilet.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_mark#Other](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_mark#Other)

~~~
SlashmanX
Sky and most other channels don't do that anymore. I've only seen ITV use that
in recent years

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jamesbrownuhh
Yes, that visible cue dot is exclusively an ITV thing these days.

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jayvanguard
I thought this article was a joke and the answer would be "because you're half
passed out with your head on the table dumb-ass."

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minikites
I wish there was an image so I could get a sense of what it looks like.

~~~
RossM
Here's an example:
[http://up.metropol247.co.uk/davidlees/daybreak_sky_sports.pn...](http://up.metropol247.co.uk/davidlees/daybreak_sky_sports.png)

~~~
minikites
Thanks! I tried Google image searching but all I got back were pictures of
actual pint glasses. :)

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rdudek
Is this only for satelite TV service providers or cable too? Also, is this
strictly a UK thing? I have not noticed anything similar in the US but from
what I can tell, all the bars I go to all have Comcast boxes. And a lot of
times, you can see a rack of Comcast equipment stacked up either behind
counters or right at the entrance behind the person that checks people in.

~~~
knd775
Most likely a UK thing. There is some odd stuff there when it comes to TV and
"licenses"

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to3m
It's the noun, so "\"licences\"".

Sky is a private business, so the arrangement here is an ordinary licencing
arrangement between one business and another. If you pay £25/mo, or whatever,
Sky give you the right to watch men kicking a ball about at home; if you want
to show the same thing to paying customers, on the other hand, you need to be
paying more. Sky pay through the nose for the rights to all this nonsense and
they have to make the money back somehow.

The TV "licence" (a tax, pretty much) is separate matter.

~~~
pluma
According to my dictionary "license" is also used as the noun (equivalent to
"licence") in American English.

My dictionary may be wrong, though.

~~~
to3m
The entire point is that the TV licence is a UK thing ;)

~~~
pluma
But if we were talking about the colour of the BBC logo, would you correct
Americans who say "color"?

Honest question. I'm a non-native speaker, but my understanding has been that
you only keep the original spelling for proper names and terms of the trade
(i.e. anything you wouldn't translate if it was non-English, like "Grand Prix"
in sports or "vert" in heraldry).

~~~
to3m
My comment wasn't entirely serious. But it seems that "TV Licence" actually is
written that way, capitalization and all - see, e.g., [https://www.gov.uk/tv-
licence](https://www.gov.uk/tv-licence)) - suggesting it is a technical term.

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phkahler
On a related note, I wonder why a lot of public places in the US have stuff on
cable (not just sports) and often not HD. They could just use an antenna and
get a great picture. I makes me wonder if that's not allowed because it would
be a public showing - even though anyone with a portable TV could view it
right there anyway. It this the case?

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ams6110
Broadcast television is not licensed for commercial use.

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phkahler
Its not licensed for anything. It is a broadcast signal that anyone with a
reciver can view. Any restrictions beyond that seem completely artificial and
unwarranted.

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icebraining
The law disagrees, though.

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cmdrfred
Perhaps but when people tell me something is illegal and therefore immoral I
always respond with the fact that the holocaust was completely legal in
germany.

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oldmanjay
So copyright holders enforcing their rights has any equivalence at all to mass
murder? I'm going to go ahead and assert that your moral compass is more or
less fucked.

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icebraining
Nobody said or implied that they have any equivalence. Please try to follow
the logic of the arguments being made before being outraged at them.

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dghughes
I wonder if there is a pattern to the glass if it's only full, half and empty
it may be simple to figure out.

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mikeryan
Hmm.... As a Smart TV app developer I see an app opportunity here...

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dfar1
So much knowledge in such a small post.

~~~
yitchelle
Beer - the social lubricant.

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warkid
Pub tvs have beer image to manipulate viewer to buy more beer!

