Clearplay: An Ingenious DVD Player That Filters Movies Without Altering Them
January 28th, 2008 | Posted in blog 11 Comments »
Clearplay is a DVD player that filters out profanity, extreme violence, and sexuality from movies, toning them down from R to PG-13, or from PG-13 to PG (if you want).
Whereas other filtering methods involve physically altering the media, Clearplay works differently. You download filter files from Clearplay’s site, load them onto a flash drive, plug the flash drive into the Clearplay DVD player, select to apply the filter to the movie, and voila, your R movie is suddenly much more family friendly.
The filter doesn’t alter the movie’s physical media at all. And you don’t have to buy special pre-edited movies — you can rent them from Blockbuster or wherever.
Clearplay may not appeal to many of my readers, but in the event that you’re interested, you can get special discounts by mentioning that I referred you. E-mail jweed@clearplay.com, include my name (“Tom Johnson”), and you’ll get a discounted price for players and memberships. Actually, if you just email that address expressing interest, I get some kickbacks.
It’s a technically ingenious solution and I’m not sure entirely how it works — it just does.
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Tags: Clearplay, filters, Web 2.0
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The program on the USB stick syncs with the DVD player’s machine to coordinate with the DVD. It really works. I’m serious. If you sign up, be sure to follow the instructions in the post to get the discounts.
Wow, nice product for the parents out there. It is always so difficult to manage, what kids want and what is best for them. This sounds like it will help parents quite a bit.
Sids last blog post..Content internet filter software – censorware
This is a very nice idea! I wonder why this has not been publicized more.
Blockbuster and other rental outlets could even provide the USB sticks along with the movies. They would probably have to charge a fee to avoid theft but these things are dirt cheap now.
You know what this really is? It’s yet another way that parents can actually avoid parenting. The simplest way to keep objectionable material away from your kids is keep it out of their grasp or out of the house entirely.
Also, Congress specifically altered the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to allow ClearPlay, and ONLY ClearPlay, to violate every MPAA member’s rights to protect their work from being altered or edited without their consent. It’s all about the money, people.
@CronoT
This isn’t about a way to ‘avoid parenting’; it’s about a technological way to monitor what you watch. Would you have the same legal complaints if I manually muted or fast forward through scenes that I found offensive? Of course not. I’m not altering or editing the work, in the same way that this product does not either. The work is still fully intact and available to be viewed on the DVD, which is the legal difference between this and other forms of movie filtering (i.e. selling edited DVDs). I am simply choosing to automatically skip through certain parts of the movie, which is my choice.
Growing up my parents would watch movies before they showed them to me, and tell me to cover my eyes or leave the room during offensive scenes. Clearplay is the technological equivalent of that. There’s nothing legally wrong with it; the only complaint comes from those who are offended by and judge people who like movies but don’t care for some of the crap that’s in them.
@Renato
To explain how it’s possible, a team from ClearPlay watches each movie and marks time sequences to remove (e.g. auto-fast forward through) and time sequences to mute, and this information is included in a ‘filter’ data file. When you want to watch a movie, you go to the ClearPlay website, check to see if they have a filter for the movie you’re interested in, and download it to the USB stick. When you place the stick in the ClearPlay player, it reads the filter and (based on your preferences for what you don’t want) automatically mutes/skips scenes.
I have been a customer/subscriber to ClearPlay for several years. 4 months ago, at Matt Naylor’s (ClearPlay employee) request, I sent in about 7 movies for filters to be made. Most of these had filters on the website, but not for my particular edition. He had told me it would probably take a few months. So I waited four months. Almost daily now for the past 2 & 1/2 weeks, I have been emailing ClearPlay for an update. I have yet to get a response. You know that dissatisfied customers have nowhere else to go. So what do I do now?
The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines the word purist as follows: one who adheres strictly and often excessively to a tradition. Purists seek the traditional form of a craft. Film styles such as black and white and claymation do have a place on the billboards today; however, it is debatable whether moviegoers understand the significance of these methods, or appreciate the tenacity it takes to put together a film of that calibre.
@Crono T: You’re response is absurd. This has nothing to do with avoiding parenting. It has everything to do with parents being able to let their kids enjoy watching movies as a family.
My 7 year and 5 year old sons love Inidiana Jones, but there is some mild and not so mild foul language that prevents us from watching the movie. We’re thinking about purchasing ClearPlay and then the boys would be able to watch the movie. It’s not about releasing parental controls. That’s ridiculous.
My question is: Is there a subscription to this or is it a buy once and you’re done thing?
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Cool. Clearplay rocks. I still love it.