From: Jeff S. <why...@ya...> - 2004-04-09 17:40:15
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There is already code in xine (or pieces of it) that was supposed to do something to this effect. I do not know how complete it is or how bit-rotten it may have become. As Mike says, the real difficulty is in the database. First, there really needs to be some kind of (open) standard for these edit lists. Second, there are many major family-oriented organizations (e.g. family.org), that could create their own databases, and each would likely have their own 'moral standards' for creating edit lists. Hopefully (a big word, I know) individuals who care to use such technology (such as myself) could find a database from an organization with a complementary 'moral standard'. Hopefully ClearPlay (I think they are the ones behind this) will see the wisdom in opening up their format and database. I don't know that I would use their database personally. As I recall, their 'moral standard' was a bit extreme for me. -- Jeff Smith --- Mike Melanson <mel...@pc...> wrote: > On Fri, 9 Apr 2004, Gary Franczyk wrote: > > > Hello.. I have a suggestion that I thought of after reading an article on > > today's Slashdot. They are talking about a DVD player that automatically > > edits out "bad" parts of DVDs. It apparently has a database of 500 movies > > and it knows which parts to skip. > > Aha...so that's how it works. I heard about this on the radio this > morning and immediately wondered how they could pull it off. > > > It would be cool to automatically edit out the naughty bits of DVDs and tv > > shows for kids. Could Xine (and therefore MythTV and other > > near-consumer-ready systems) use a sort of CDDB-style database of movies, to > > know where the bad parts are and cut them out of movies? Maybe even drop > > the audio on bad words? Of course, this same database could be used in the > > opposite direction so that you can watch only the bad parts. >;-) > > > > That way, if the child-protect is in, ZINE can detect the DVD MPAA rating, > > plus, if a "edit" flag is set, then allow the movie to be played, but the > > bad parts are cut out. > > > > What do you think? > > Everything you suggest is technically feasible. That said, I am > certainly not going to champion the initiative. The technical side of it > would be trivial. Well, relatively trivial when compared to the > social/political side. In fact, no offense, but the more I think about it, > it sounds insane. You have all the same issues that come up whenever such > real-time editing (or censoring) technology is discussed: Who decides > what's 'dirty'? Who decides what kids shouldn't hear or see? > > This is actually quite dissimilar from the CDDB paradigm. The CDDB > reports highly objective (non-debatable) data: Album title, artist, track > names. The material in your proposed database would be highly subjective, > open to interpretation. > > Perhaps if the company that is doing this made their database > public, we might be able to do something. But I can't envision that we > could ever get such a free, open database off the ground. > > -- > -Mike Melanson __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/ |