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Auto-Censoring DVD Player
Gogl writes "Those clever folks at RCA have apparently designed a DVD player that automatically scans movies and censors them to make them kosher, as it were. That means none of the naughty bits and none of those bad words either. It will be sold by Walmart for the price of $79, and what with the recent Janet Jackson 'wardrobe malfunction' this product will likely be lauded by the FCC and moralists everywhere, though Hollywood is already complaining."
Damn those dumb people, why are they taking the b00bies away from me???
What, are these corporations my MOTHER or something now??
I think this is an unauthorized making of a derivative work, and as such should be actionable under the DMCA. As a matter of fact, distribution of this player should be as well.
Where do you get *your* entropy?
Stupid thing... it's censoring all of my cookery instruction DVDs. It's blocked out an apple and banana, both of the melons, and a saveloy.
to start the trend early.. if you were watching a DVD of that awful performance (and wardrobe malfunction) of Janet Jackson would it have captured and censored it? Probably not.
I pray to almighty Jesus that all the gun-fighting and blood spray will be unaffected.
I just KNOW there's going to be a hack out for it soon, that will enable to user to reverse the process and skip to just the naughty bits and swear words. =)
Will this be like the web-censoring software that prohibits users from visiting the Scunthrope United soccer team website, or the Essex County College website?
Do you want to watch what you want? Or do you want Hollywood to have total control? This is especially good for children and watching otherwise great movie with a few objectionable scenes.
Filters out the boring crap and goes straight for the neekidness and cussing?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
So now we have to depend on the processor in a $79 piece of asiaware to correctly detect and 'bleep' or otherwise censor dirty words? Please. This reminds me of the so-called "web censoring software" that looked for images with sufficient pixels in the color range of human flesh, and 'decided' that it was pr0n. It had a false positive rate = false negative rate.
Here's a suggestion to all you Concerned Parents: Stop foisting the responsibility of raising your children onto other people. Watch TV with your kids. Know what they watch. Heck, buy them books instead.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
now all my porn's gonna be more broke up than eminem on cable..
This is as much of a censorship story as me saying "Mozilla Thunderbird sucks as a newsreader because it lacks a good killfile".
This is a device being sold on the market. Censorship is a word used in reference to a Government office and Government behavior. There is a difference. RCA cannot force you to use its player or punish you for not meeting its standards through capture or violence.
"automatically scans movies and censors them to make them kosher"
Time to throw out my copy of Babe: Pig in the City.
Actually, it was time to do that years ago...
A Hollywood consortium, including some of Tinseltown's top directors, has sued Clearplay and others, arguing that they are abusing the films' artistic integrity.
Ah, yes. The artistic integrity of, say, the excessive violence in 48 hours? Or, perhaps, the gratiuitous nudity in American Pie.
STFU, morons. 99.9% of Hollywood's tripe is about as artistic as my ass after a binge at Taco Bell.
If people want to screen a movie they paid to see, that's their perogative. An excellent application for this is to effectively turn a "questionable for children" movie into something that you, as a parent, feel is sanitized enough to show your children.
Wake me up if some idiot starts mandating this technology in ALL players. Until then, this is just an interesting technology that people can choose to use if they want. Yawn.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I think it's a Good Thing(tm).
The problem comes when someone else tries to impose his/her morals on ME. By censoring DVDs at source, that is what happens. This player, OTOH, brings censoring to the destination. Great idea.
I put a copy of Pulp Fiction into this thing, and all I got out were 13 seconds of credits! Where did my movie go???
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
A religious movie comes out where the producer makes up scenes that inspire bigotry and the movie is about two hours of nothing about a man being beaten to a pulp. CVS airs the superbowl, refuses to take a commercial asking people to vote for someone other then bush, but they gladly take pro bush commercials. No one complains.......hardly The majority of the 6 plus billion people on this planet have breasts and those who don't have seen them. A woman's nipple is exposed on television and the earth in the United States is shaken!
Besides, it will butcher movies, not replace the content with milder cuss words like on TV. If you have ever watched Malaysian TV you will know exactly what it will do. Entire chunks of film will simply disappear leaving an incoherent mess in its place. Imagine (trying) to watch something like Pulp Fiction through it for example.
People who buy this are idiots and following on from its DIVX fiasco it is more proof that RCA really doesn't have a clue.
Of course something good might come out of it. If all the god bothering prudes equip themselves with one of these, it will leave Blockbuster et al with no excuse for not stocking certain titles.
WHY is it unacceptable for children to see people making love (fucking, if you prefer), but it's okay if they see people killing each other with firearms.
What the f... ?
Parents and owners of these things are simply decided what they do and do not want their familty to see. Are you saying that I must allow my young children to watch nudity, violence, and bad language or else I am some kind of fundamentalist?
These are tools for parents, nothing more, nothing less. Last I knew parents were allowed to raise their own children. Yeah- censorship is bad, for grown adults, but I plan on censoring the heck out of what I allow my children to see. There is no freedom of speech or freedom to view anything for a 9 year old.
Another way to look at this is as a tool of free speech. It allows parents to further control what their children see whild not forcing entire censorship. I would like to continue to watch movies as my daughter gets old enough to understand what she is seeing on the screen. Most of the time sex scenes and foul language does little to add to the story (I know there are exceptions, like Boogie Nights, for example).
Anyway, just my two cents-- there is no reason to freak out here. RCA and Walmart aren't trying to censor what you are allowed to see, rather, they are providing parents with a tool that will help us to raise our children as we see fit.
[FromTheMorning]
I have 3 kids, and I don't let them watch most of the crap I watch anyway, sex/violence or not. Nudity is okay, (hey, we were born that way,) but explaining to a 5 year old why two people are naked and wrestling is rather uncomfortable. As is explaining why people are getting shot, etc.
However, I would rather just not let them watch those kind of movies until they are old enough to understand them, or at least old enough to understand my explanations of them. (HAHA!) I'd rather not use a machine to do what I consider to be my job- filtering the world for my children until they are ready to experience it full blast.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Why is this flamebait?
The parent was referring to modifying somebodies intellectual property without their permission. That is covered by the DMCA. Why do you think Hollywood hates the idea of these things? They consider themselves artists and artists don't like it when other people start changing their work. If you don't like it then don't look at it or watch it -- but don't change it.
The parent raises a valid point about how stupid the DMCA is too. It would cover this in theory. Overreaching law or good thing? His comment was not flamebait.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I would appreciate a version that can remove all scenes with Ben Afflick in them.
Sincerely,
J. Lo.
Back in school, 10 or 15 years ago, I had just begun learning english.. and the english teacher showed us this movie, hiding subtitles.
;-)
Of course at the end I had NO IDEA of what really happened in the movie. Who the characters were, etc...
But I knew ONE thing for SURE : the f-word is the most important word in the american (maybe not english) language
this is the stupidest (happy mountains) i have ever heard of in my whole (dancing kittens) life
what (singing birds) thought this (rolling hills) up?
if you don't like the (grazing deer) movie, don't watch the (blooming flowers) movie!
cutting it up into sanitized (falling rain) pieces is akin to giving yourself a (bubbling brooks) frontal lobotomy
i just don't understand the (belching volcanoes) censorial instincts of some pinheaded (churning lava)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Clearplay scans movies for dodgy content, and then programs that data into its system.
Subscribers can then watch standard copies of the 500-or-so films on its list, with the assurance that they will automatically skip over mute anything that children or the squeamish may not like.
Until now, Clearplay has only run through a PC.
It does not use a heuristic. Clearplay has already screened the movie previously for offensive content and preprogrammed actions (i.e. skipping or bleeping).
Personally I don't like the idea of people trusting other people's judgment on what their kids should or shouldn't see in a movie. Seems a little Big Brother'ish.
I'm sure many parents will love this though. Now they can just sit their kids in front of the tube and not worry their little heads over whether their kids are seeing inappropriate material.
It's partly the fault of societal pressures (i.e. monetary), but really, what's the point of having kids if you just ignore them after they reach age 4 (sometimes even earlier?).
hmmm... but I must say, the world would be a safer, brighter place if it were not for all us people devoted to peace.
-sloptaco
Why is this flamebait?
Because nothing is being "made" or "modified." The DVD is untouched. And regardless, if I own a magazine or a book, I can tear out pages that offend me, and yes I can still sell it afterwards.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Just give the enduser the ability to censor, and leave the original signal/movie untouched. Example: When the little tikes are in the room, switch to G rated, when they leave, switch to whatever rating you want. Heck, maybe with this tech, you could have a setting to make it all "Naughty-Bits". I don't see it as censorship if it's selectable by the end-user then it's selective viewing. The problem comes in when/if you are mandated to keep the settings at a certain level, or required to have it self-censor. Beyond that, this could help eliminate censorship at the original broadcast.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
a DVD player that automatically scans movies and censors them to make them kosher
I only buy movies prepared under rabbinical supervision.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Does this make Greedo shoot first with his walkie-talkie?
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
So, if I cue up just the car chase in "Streets of San Fancisco," or maybe just the rescue of Morpheus in "The Matrix" without actually watching the movies in their entirety, am I violating the rights of the artistic creators?
If not, how is it any different if I'm a puritanical old biddy who wants to watch "Eyes Wide Shut" with a DVD player that automatically skips over the orgy scene? Or "Clockwork Orange" without the rape scenes? Granted, "Clockwork Orange" would be a very short movie if you took the sex and violence out, but if somebody really just wants to watch Malcome MacDowell extoll the joys of drinking "milk plus" for 10 minutes, that should be up to them.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Look I understand if you don't want to buy one of these thing, that's fine. But why is the fact that this is available on the market make this a censorship issue?
Some people don't subscribe to HBO because they don't like the things that are shown. Are they censoring HBO? Well, I guess if you twist the meaning of the word "censor". But is it unreasonable? Of course not! An individuals right to decide (for themselves) whether or not they want to view something isn't censorship, it's freedom of choice.
As far as this particular device, if you don't like it's feature set, don't buy it. But, who's being the censor if, because you don't like the feature set, you prevent someone else from buying it?
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
You'd like to know the thought processes of those that support this?
OK. It's called the right to choose. That's not so difficult.
You want to watch the full movie, boobies and all.
For some odd reason, which (although completely illogical to you) shouldn't matter if you truly believe in freedom (it's not freedom if everyone else has to approve of your motivations), my neighbor's grandma would like to see that movie, sans boobies.
With this product, she can do that. Without infringing on YOUR freedom to see boobies.
Doesn't this sound like a much nicer solution than grandma (Whether she has a good reason or not) pushing for stupid laws (like every DVD that contains naked boobies being on shelves at least 5 feet high, etc,etc)?
I'd like to know why folks like you get so scared of an object that solves a problem in a way that doesn't reduce anyone's freedom, but is geared towards people with a self-imposed religious or moral code.
Just because some of those people are over-the-top and obnoxious, doesn't mean you should be against any product that helps the rest of them get what they want without harming you.
I have always wanted to find a way to personally edit DVD's to remove content that would be objectionable - that way, as my children grow older, I could create new versions that introduces the stuff back in. No reason to have some corp. body controlling the 'censored' content of my dvd's. Any thoughts on the DVD editing? Thanks
I want a DVD player that takes a regular PG-13 movie and adds back in all the naughty bits that the MPAA board made the filmmakers edit out to avoid an R rating.
That would rock.
Finally, I'd be able to sit through entire viewing of Steel Magnolias with the wife!
I applaud your principles, but wonder if they've not blinded you to satire.
;-)
A transient copy of the content is made in memory, and it is this niggling detail is at the root of all this fuss over digital media, sharing, et al. Remember, the copyright law had to be ammended to cover computer software precisely because of transient copies and backup media. Under the classical interpretation, running a computer program, which necessarily entails making a copy of the copyrighted work in RAM, violates the law except as permitted under a license.
I see what you're saying and I agree with your basic premise. However, in the eyes of plenty of recent law, I tihnk the original poster is on the money. This is exactly the kind of thing the DMCA might be invoked against. I'd personally like to see it happen because the likely bad outcome for the DVD publishers would be one more bitch slap to that bad law.
Oh, and remind me to never buy a book from you!
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
I'd love to see it. It might just blow up the player.
It seems like every film director feels compelled to throw in a sex/nude scene, and the film will be rated R, but only for "violence".
Case in point: the movie Basic, starring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. I liked the movie, billed as a "military suspense thriller." What I didn't like was a scene near the end, apparently during a Mardi Gras parade, where a completely topless woman was shown from the front. What the hell? In my opinion, that's not appropriate for my boys to be watching.
There are many good movies out there that barring a few scenes, would be perfectly acceptable for my children to watch. A device like this should allow my family to watch and enjoy these movies.
Typos... that's just how I role.
I wonder how long "Debbie Does Dallas" would run on this player? 2 minutes?
Opening credits...closing credits.
Explain precisely what "anti-piracy measures" this device is attempting to circumvent. The DMCA, nasty little beast that it is, is not the whole of modern copyright law, and by losing sight of that fact, you're playing the part of Joe Average Slashdotter.
Now, if DVDs suddenly started including "ButtBlaster" technology to ensure that people couldn't fast forward through the racy bits, and this DVD player had to bypass that technology, then the DMCA would be perfectly applicable.
As it stands, this thing is nothing but an automatic fast-forwarder, and I would hate to be the judge who made it illegal to skip parts of a movie. He'd most likely be getting a dead cat in his mailbox.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
So, if I cue up just the car chase in "Streets of San Fancisco," or maybe just the rescue of Morpheus in "The Matrix" without actually watching the movies in their entirety, am I violating the rights of the artistic creators?
;-)
If not, how is it any different if I'm a puritanical old biddy who wants to watch "Eyes Wide Shut" with a DVD player that automatically skips over the orgy scene?
Well, its different in the sense that you want to only watch the good bits and she's missing out on the only good bit...
You can't take the sky from me...
So whats the censorship here. I can take a black magic marker and get rid of all the bits of my books I dont like. Thats not censorship. So whats the hoopla here about buying a device to do that for movies that I own. Thats not censorship. Thats me using my things the way I want to.
Today is a gift. Save the receipt.
They only people for who it is illegal to sell the coverless books are the book stores who have signed an agreement with the book distributor that say instead of sending back the complete book they can send back just the front cover and they will destroy the book.
In the book themselves some just have a warning that if the book it is a missing the front cover it could of been illegally sold, and for the would-be purchases not to buy it. As a purchasers I am under no legal requirement, just a moral one.
Like anything else in life, there needs to be balance. I honestly don't think a censoring DVD player is a major threat because it's not part of the international specifications for DVDs. If the DVD player was legislated, THEN it would be bad.
But before you go and blame fundamentalist Christians for this, look rationally for a moment. There's still choice in the store to buy a normal DVD player of international specifications. You can still watch R-rated movies in the theater with graphic depictions of sex and violence. There have been regimes that were officially atheist that have banned such films in the past in the name of information control, and those atheist regimes were very extreme (read: Communism).
Therefore, don't be so bold to blame something that is really a choice at this point on a religion. Until the government legislates this change, don't get your panties in such a bunch. Government isn't even involved in this decision yet.
OK, folks its time to quit asking every one BUT YOURSELFS to be your mommy!
You want the goverment to censor this, censor that. You want your DVD player to censor this and that too! Please.
The education system in this country is nothing more than a glorified babysitting service, so mom can hang out at the mall or the country club or what have you. If you didn't want the responsability of a child and actually PARENTING the child then you should have taken measures to not had [a] kid[s] in the first place!
Its is NOT the goverments or soceity in general responsability to do your parenting.
If you purchased a DVD that contains lanquage that is not suitable for you or your rugrats then why did you purchase or rent it? ? DVD players should not be ADDING in more DRM crap!
If the movie/show on the DVD is that offensive to you then maybe YOU should NOT be watching it anyway. Leave it for the ADULTS of soceity to watch.
Parenting requires INVOLMENT and guess what that means you need to know what your deliquents are doing and watching on TV, radio, internet etc.. It also means YOU the PARENT need to TEACH THEM that some things are shown on a DVD are not considered proper lanquage.
Just like this crap over Janet Jackson, Howard Stern, Bubba the Love Sponge et al.. I don't really care for any of them. I don't care that one bared her breast on TV. As far as I am concerned more power to her!
This country is SERIOUSLY BEHIND the times on broadcast & media free speech as compared to the rest of the world. Its time to get over it! If you don't like whats being said or shown on the radio or TV CHANGE THE CHANNEL or TURN IT OFF!
Use YOUR BRAIN and quit asking the government, or any one else, to be a Censor Nanny.
1311393600 - Back to Black
Right.... That's why women in the USA are forced to wear coverings that only reveal their hands and eyes. That's why anyone caught having sex outside of marriage is stoned (in the ancient sense of that term) to death. That's why Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson will declare you an infidel for speaking such things and will encourage Christians everywhere to kill you ala Salman Rushdie (sp?).
If you don't like Christians, fine, but in this case AC must stand for Anal Comparison.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
And will we be able to buy the database on DVD?
Of course such a DVD is an example a la Goedel, Escher, Bach of the class of DVD entitled "I cannot be played on DVD player X". The tortoise would be proud.
...this does not do anything with the work that you're not already allowed to do. With the proper fast forward/skip & mute buttons, you could do the exact same thing already. In fact, I would consider it a lot safer since it does not modify the actual copy itself, just the presentation of it.
Presentation is my choice. I can watch in on a b/w television, with the sound muted, or I can turn past a page in the newspaper. That does not violate any copyright law. Even the most 1984esque sections of the DMCA were designed to prevent copyright violations (including tools and information that could lead to such), not to control the presentation.
If the presented work was recaptured (b/w, muted or missing a page), it would be a derivative work and thus subject to copyright law. But since that is not the case, the DMCA should not apply. Next thing you know, it'll be illegal to see a movie wearing shades or with earplugs...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In fact, anyone who read the article would have read this:
A Hollywood consortium, including some of Tinseltown's top directors, has sued Clearplay and others, arguing that they are abusing the films' artistic integrity.
By producing - without permission - altered versions of intellectual property, censors are effectively pirating directors' and studios' work, the lawsuit argues.
Clearplay hopes to escape through a loophole: instead of making new versions of films, it argues, its technology is simply another way of playing the existing movie - no more an abuse than a viewer fast-forwarding a tape in his own home.
The case is pending, but RCA has decided to press ahead regardless.
While the article does not mention exactly which statutes they are suing under, the fact that they are taking legal action ought to count towards something, here.
(It also seems possible that they actually are suing under the DMCA, but I don't have enough information to confidently conclude that.)
One that auto-inserts naughty clips into movies.
You and the Mrs are watching Armageddon and boom! Liv Tyler boobies.
Or better yet, maybe they will make better movies. I don't have any problem with films that have sex, violence, etc, if it makes sense to the story. But there is a whole raft of crap that is stuck in films because the "filmmakers" don't think we as an audience will stay focused on the film without someone on screen using "F***" in all of its grammatical forms every 10 seconds. Its unnecessary and shows a lack of creativity on the writers' part.
When Hollywood actually starts doing something artistic again, then maybe I'll give "artistic integrity" thought again. Since most of the stuff that comes out now is remakes of films done 30 years ago ( and mostly the earlier ones are better...I give you the Marky Mark Planet of the Apes as a prime example of just because you can doesn't mean you should. ), I hardly think that it requires much artistry to remake something that has already been done. A decent painter could reproduce the Mona Lisa with paint by numbers, but that doesn't require much artistry.
your right in that it's a win for RCA, and a Win for the consumer, after all, it CAN show boobies; you have the option.
but you only covered the dvd player and the person watching it. The content providers should also have a say in if they want the art that they put together piece by piece ripped apart by some $79 dollar wallmart dvd player.
what if the entire movie lays on the scene where someone happens to be topless? guess you won't be watchin the sapranos.
it's harmfull unless both the users and the content providers have the ability to circumvent it.
life is harsh, people say naughty things, and do naughty acts, the sooner we get over it, the better. look how dogs shake hands.
This gives the consumer the choice... sounds like a good thing to me.
You don't like it, buy another model for yourself.
Agile Artisans
Im amazed at how many readers here jumped on this decrying censorship and claiming all sorts of DMCA violations. This "censorship" is almost definitely going to be an OPTION for parents to edit what their kids see.
This is a feature of DVDs that should have been available from the beginning! Why is it that I can't select the "clean" or "edited for tv" version of a movie from the main dvd menu? Sometimes I want to allow my kids to watch a movie, but only the edited version so they don't have to see any gore or gratuitous sex. This should be an option on every DVD player. It looks like it only edits around 500 movies... If they were smart, they would make something like a CDDB for movie edits. That way, a central database can store all the edits, and you can download them as you get new movies. Something like this could probably be done with MythTv.
You should be lauding this as an long overdue advancement of the technology.
10 years later, poor Johnny gets confused on prom night because he is greeted with big pink round things instead of black squares that he's grown up on.
/. reader he will never have to worry about prom night.
If Johnny is the average
I have to applaud RCA for providing this product. It will make everyone happy, if they would shut up and think for a minute..
Do you believe that Tom Hanks will be happy to have the atrocities of war stripped from Saving Private Ryan? Will Steven Spielberg be happy when Schindler's List is pared down so that Nazi's don't look like such bad guys? Would Stanley Kubrick, were he still alive, be glad that they are taking out the brutal, violent parts of Full Metal Jacket?
Some writers and directors consider their work to be art and not something to be trifled with by some right-wing Mormon zealot working for Clearplay in Salt Lake City, Utah. They don't want their movie to jarringly skip over important scenes. They don't want their movies stripped of all emotional impact, adult language, and human sexuality. They don't want the viewer being left confused as to the subtleties of the motivating factors (which were censored out) that drove the characters.
Uh hello, this is a win-win for everybody!
That is, everyone for whom artistic vision is unimportant.
Man, I hope youre kidding. Sexuality is natural and repressing it only helps push us into closer to complete cultural insanity.
Filmmakers can't even make a realistic sex scene without getting the NC-17 kiss off death from the moralists.
Kids grow up with no positive images of sex, just religious hatred. Not to mention the federal government is pushing unrealistic abstinence and downplaying the importance of condoms and birth-control.
Who is the fucked up culture here?
I expect this to fly off the shelves into every god-fearing Xtian home in the U.S. until...
Mel releases 'The Passion' on DVD and this player will only show the opening and closing credits.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
^^^ What he said...
It seems clear to me that the people (ignorantly) screaming that this product is censorship are probably the same people complaining about advisory labels on music products, or even MPAA ratings at all.
What I think they fail to notice is that this skips nearly *all* of that controversy and just allows someone(s) to do reactive (post-facto) filtering on the product that was created, rather than causing the zealots on either side to push for all kinds of ridiculous and speculous rules and laws to under- or over-prevent the problems of [pick an adjective] violence, [stick in another adjective] sex, and [finally, one more adjective here] language.
From a purely pragmatic standpoint (I'm unlikely to buy one but do see value here), if I were really upset with censorship issues, I think I'd really be supporting this kind of product because it would give me the freedom to enjoy something unfiltered, while allowing everyone else to still set their own level of filtering.
I'm still of the opinion that most of the "products" coming out of the TV, music, and movie industries is utter crap, but that's my opinion, and the rest of you are squarely entitled to your own. This product will just give those who want less [sex | violence | foul language | etc.] to pick their own level of comfort.
I fail to see -- how is this a bad thing? It's not really different than selecting your flavor of ice cream, or which brand of soda you drink, folks! Some people want to consume Red Bull all day long (God help you if you're one of 'em... that stuff is insane!), others are just fine with Sprite or Hires root beer.
Our censoring overlords think there's sex and nudity in Apollo 13! I must have missed that....
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
It would be interesting to watch the movie with a negative filter on. You would only see the sex and violence. Kind of like the ending to Cinema Paradisio when the guy finds cuts of all the kisses he could never see as a kid.
Politicus
Well gee... Fundamentalism refers to beliefs, so I guess that would be someone who believes in some kind of fundamentals that include pacifism.
The reason you're getting confused by this is that fundamentalist Islam is tremendously violent. The Koran is chock full of wonderful things like instructions to convert people by force and kill non muslisms. While it also true that there are peaceful instructions in the Koran, what many people don't realize is that early surahs (verses) are over-ruled by later ones. (All Surah's are supposedly arranged in the order that Mohammed wrote them down). Fundamentalist mustlims take the violent instructions at face value with fairly dramatic results. Fundamentalist Christians (normally Protestants) are the other big group to whom "Fundamentalism" is often ascribed. These people also take the bible quite literally. This normally expresses itself publicly with strong beliefs that abortion kills a human life, homosexual activity is always immoral and that heterosexual intimacy should be confined to marriage and the drive to tell others about their beliefs. People frequently dislike Christian fundamentalists, because they don't like being told that they are sinful and need to change. That's understandable, but there's a big difference between fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity. Islam is politically theocratic by nature while Christianity gets along quite well with secularism. Part of the reason for this is that fundamentalist Christians believe that faith is between individuals and God, and many see this as instructions to keep faith and government separate. Now because I want this post to be on-topic, I must say that I find objections to this technology quite contraditory. Most objectors insist they believe in free choice and free choice. Yet somehow it's an offense to a director if someone decides not to watch some parts of a film. Dare I suggest that objectors aren't really interested in choice, they just want to tell others to act as they do? Free choice people. That's what it's all about. The freedom to choose. This isn't censorship because there is no outside agency imposing it. I thought the messianic message of slashdot was that technology should enable free choice...
In that 2 minute delay I had another thought... How is this DVD player any different that Taco providing me with the ability to not see -1 posts or setting my threshold to whatever I want?
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... I am still puzzled as to what is so objectionable about the human breast. Find me someone who has never seen one. People who get angry at the sight have a problem they really should not be sharing with the rest of us. Here in Italy the TV is practically nothing but breasts and buttocks. I don't mind that in the least - what I object to is the banality and dullness of it all, but I don't supose the FCC has any standards covering stupidity, lies, hypocrisy or imaginative poverty.
Science fiction for grown-ups...
I can't really disagree with the fundamental ideas in you post, and that's scary, speaking as an U.S'ian.
Violence is just as natural as sex. It is a human constant. I think that is true because toddlers will always fight over a toy until their parents train them no to, and there's always a war going on somewhere.
Some twisted freaks argue that sex and violence are just different facets of the same psychological drive. That's more than a little fucked up, but maybe it is partly true.
The point is, that which is natural is not necessarily good. Equating the two is an anti-hippie peeve of mine, sorry. Humans are sexual beings and denying it makes no sense. Kids will learn about their sexuality, and it's up to their parents to help them see sex as positive and to be responsible about it.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
Has anyone figured out the ClearPlay "filter lists" yet? The Internet player for PCs downloads them via the Internet. What does the standalone player do? Can you create your own filter lists? For example, could you express the "Star Wars Phantom Edit" (the one that deletes that Jar Jar characte) as a ClearPlay filter list? This has potential.
I bet someone will come up with a hack that lets you see only contents that's being censored...
The blurb tries to make it sound like they invented something magical, but they didn't. Basically, a company called ClearPlay has humans that watch popular movies, and makes a note of all the "bad" audio/video spots in the movie. They make a big censoring list, and the player IDs the movie against that list and skips the parts the ClearPlay guys said to skip. The database of movie titles is at about 500 so far, which is far, far short of the number of DVDs at your typical rental store. The mentioned Janet Jackson incident, which was live TV, and has nothing at all to do with cencsoring your DVDs.
11*43+456^2
so, what would happen to porn DVDs when you turn the censor on?
I can't wait until The Passion of the Christ comes out on DVD and becomes a delightful five minute romp.
Okay... so Spielberg can take the guns out of the theatrical re-release of E.T. because he doesn't feel right with HIS KIDS watching it that way... But if the rest of us are offended by the swearing thats just to bad!
THAT my friends is hipocrisy... Hipocrosy is not a Mormon, or a Catholic, Protestant, Budhist, Atheist, or Christian radical trying to uphold their personal moral standards to the best of their ability.
My wife and I decided to no longer watch rated R movies a while ago. Because of excessive foul language we even avoid some PG-13 movies. Some of these R rated movies don't deserve the rating they are given, but we avoid those the same as a movie that has earned it in every way... My wife and I used to purchase between 5-10 DVDs a month. That number has sharply declined as movies of late seem to be more often than not getting the R rating... Now we purchase about 1-2 dvds a month...
If they don't like this VCR idea why don't they come up with their OWN IDEAS. Instead they blame piracy, they blame tivo, they blame, DVD Burners...
What makes me not buy is the fact that if I really like a movie (Like Terminator 2 Ultimate Edition) But no longer want to be subjected to the profanity every time I watch it... I can't make my own edited copy because I'd have to ILLEGALLY break the copy protection... I can't buy an edited copy because no one can "legally" sell any. And The producers themselves don't offer one... But they aparently had no problem letting USA Network modify the content for viewing on standard cable...
Most DVD players now already have parental controls that allow the dvd player to not allow playing of certain rated titles without a password... why not extend this idea to what is actually provided on the DVD...
Provide the original uncut theatrical edition at whatever it was rated but alteratively offer tamed down cuts of the movie on the same disc (So for example with terminator 2 you could choose... uncut. or a PG-13ish version). You could even build the DVD player so that unless you know the Password for the rated R capability your DVD player will only allow you to play the pg-13 cut, or if there is no such cut it just does as it does now and refuses to play...
My point is GIVE ME SOME KIND OF AN OPTION other than "don't buy this movie" obviously there will be movies where that is all I can do (something like Texas Chainsaw Massacre). But for the ones where I could have just as good an experience without all the swearing or a 5 second nude scene. (Terminator 2) I would like to have the ability to enjoy the film in with out the bits I would deem offensive. For now I will just continue on the path I am on. And with all my possible options deemed ILLEGAL and the content eventually becoming what I percieve to be absolute trash I will eventually will stop watching TV, DVD, Etc all together!!!
Not because of piracy, or dvd burners, or tivo... but simply because I can't choose what I want my media experience to be... This is about choice people! and choice is a good thing... If you don't like this VCR DON'T BUY IT. Problem solved! NO ONE IS FORCING EVERY HOME TO HAVE ONE!
If you are saying it's because you don't want swearing and nudity, don't rent a movie with swearing or nudity. There's quite a choice out there. Sure, there's often "obligatory swearing and nudity" to get a more adult rating, but what does this tell you about the artistic integrity of the filmmaker? You think you're going to pick up a great movie with that kind of thinking behind it?
If you want to get a movie suitable for kids, rent some Pixar or Spy Kids or Harry Potter.
The most dangerous thing about this invention is its limits. How do you know what will or will not be edited? OK, boobies and swearing maybe. How about discussions about drugs? or religion?