ClearPlay - cleaning up movies

**Wayne A. Pflughaupt** · **08-02-07, 01:25 PM**

Has anyone here ever heard of ClearPlay? I never have, until came across a display at Target this morning. Basically it appears to be a digital censoring service/protocol to clean up DVDs to make them suitable for family viewing. From the demo I saw (which is available on their website), you download a filter to a flash drive and insert it into a special DVD player, and it does the rest. I get the impression that it’s not some computer program doing the editing – we all know that would be “iffy” at best. Apparently the editing is done by real people (“movie editors” I think the demo calls them), so it should be pretty fool proof.

The service costs about $5 a month, and you have to buy a special DVD player that will accept the flash drive. A couple of concerns that jump out at me would be:

Dolby Digital compatibility. Seems like that shouldn’t be a problem, though since this is done digitally. Even if it were, I typically don’t watch stuff my kids are interested in, so I don’t really care if they don’t get a true 5.1.
The cheap price of the player, from a reliability standpoint – I wouldn’t want to have to be replacing the thing ever couple of years, and I doubt we’ll see mainstream manufactures ever jumping on this bandwagon.
Re-playability. We all know that kids, especially little kids, like to see the same movies over and over. What if some out-of-town cousin visits who hasn’t seen Toy Story II, and your kid hasn’t watched it in a couple of years? Are you going to have an archive of flash drives for each movie? It would get to be a pain to have to go download something every time they pull an old one off the shelf.
The library is probably quite limited, but for children and pre-teens that shouldn't be a problem, since they typically only want to see the latest releases.

I expect that there is a pent-up demand for something like this, especially if it works well. Even in so-called kid-friendly movies, there is virtually always something obnoxious that just shouldn’t be in a kiddie movie. Maybe if ClearPlay takes off it’ll be a wake-up call for Hollywood, but I’m not holding my breath.

Personally I’d like the option of exactly what would be edited. If I’m watching a war movie, for instance, you expect people to bleed. I can live without their gratuitous “f” words, however. Sure I know soldiers swear, but that doesn’t mean I want to listen to it. And obviously, you wouldn’t want the same kind of editing for your 4-year-old as you would your 17-year-old.

Any thoughts?

Regards,
Wayne

**Sonnie** · **08-02-07, 03:54 PM**

Naut has brought up discussion about something similar to this in the past, but I'm not sure it's the same thing.

**Fincave** · **08-03-07, 12:41 AM**

Here is my 0.02c on the issue. I would prefer to not have my movies censored/edited in any way. Many movies contain elememnts that may be undesirable for viewers due to various reasons, nudity, language, graphic violence etc, thankfully these movies have some kind of age rating and the viewer then makes the concious choice to watch or not watch a particular movie. I want to see the movie the way the director and people involved in the making of the movie intended, if the movie were to contain an element that put me off for whatever reason, well I know where the power button is! I am not sure how clearplay would edit language, would the bad words be 'beeped' out, or would they be just be silenced and you would see the actors mouth moving? I know that this would probably annoy me more than any of the bad words as you would know that an actor has just said something naughty. Lip reading is also pretty easy, at least the naughty words, anyone who has watched british football/soccer is definitely not going to misunderstand what a player has said to another player or referee. Were Clearplay to delete a scene or part thereof it would be too much like messing with the movie, IMO.

I do not have children so it is a bit hard to comment on the uses of Clearplay when it concerns younger viewers. I think that most dvd players do have a parental lock on them and with this function enabled one should be able to have some control as to what can be watched, without entering the code. I must admit that I do not know does the parental lock work, have had no need for it and as I am pretty useless at remembering passwords and the like I have not even tried it, I would probably just end blocking a lot of movies that I would want to watch. I think that Clearplay could have its uses when there are children of differing ages watching something together, a twelve year old and a six year old could watch something together without the parents having to worry if a movie is suitable.

To sum up, I would have no use for something like Clearplay though for families with younger viewers it could be useful.

**Richard W. Haines** · **09-12-07, 09:36 AM**

I saw a bit about this on some TV program. As long as it's clearly labeled what version it is and the
uncut version is available (which may or may not be the 'director's cut' depending on whether he
was a work for hire or the actual producer of the film), this is no different than having a special
television copy created for broadcast or re-editing the movie for foreign censorship restrictions.

There will always be more than one version of a movie out there. This has always been the case.
No distributor is going to turn down revenue from a market due to restrictions imposed upon it.
Both "Jaws" and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" were slightly censored for Great Britain
and they were still hits. My only objection is when the 'uncut' version (whether it's the theatrical
release copy or special DVD release) is no available. This is rarely the case now so if they want
to create a version suitable for children (or the generic "G") and label it accordingly which is
distributed along with the complete version, I don't see any problems. Just buy or rent the
version you want to see. This was the same type of controversy over colorization. As long
as the original black and white version was around, what's the difference. Since movies are so
expensive to produce, I don't blame the producers for trying to derive as much revenue as they
can with different versions catered to specific markets.

**Mitch G** · **09-12-07, 10:23 AM**

My feeling is that if a movie has questionable content, then it probably shouldn't be shown to the given person in the first place. So, instead of editing the movie, just don't show it. Furthermore, there are some movies that might have a bad word or two that I don't have a problem if my kids see (they hear worse on the school bus) and I would rather just let the movie play as originally intended rather than having it edited.

At our house, I usually watch movies after the kids are in bed, but if I start a movie earlier, I tell the kids who are usually in the basement playing on the computer and/or watching Disney channel anyway that I'm watching an R movie and they should announce themselves as the come upstairs so I can pause/stop the movie.

All that said, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a market for this. I just wish there wasn't. In other words, parents should be the censors not some guy I don't know.

Mitch

**Sonnie** · **09-12-07, 10:25 AM**

I wish it were where all movies had a PG rated or censored version. Of course some movies it would be impossible to ever get to a PG rating. Then even some PG ratings aren't so safe. Movies like The Departed, Goodfellas, just to name a sampling... and most sexually oriented movies would be impossible to ever get to a true PG rating, but there are a host of movies that would. For instance... in the movie 300, which I really enjoyed, I could have done without the actual sex scenes in that movie and it would have not effected me one bit on the plot of the movie. I'm not sure how much of a revenue boost it would really be since it seems the censor eligible parts of movies don't appear to effect the majority of people.

**Wayne A. Pflughaupt** · **09-12-07, 11:07 AM**

Keep in mind that we’re not talking about “released versions” of a movie, this is something a private company has come up with that is supposed to work on standard studio released DVDs.

Quote:

My feeling is that if a movie has questionable content, then it probably shouldn't be shown to the given person in the first place. So, instead of editing the movie, just don't show it.

That certainly limits your options considerably. There are plenty of supposedly family- and kid-friendly movies that have some brief, obnoxious (and usually totally useless) scene. Often times inserted merely to push the movie from a G to PG, for instance. For instance, that scene from ET around the dinner table where the little kid, no less, gratuitously utters a word referring to the male anatomy.

Plus, I’ve always kinda considered the “if you don’t like it, don’t watch it” argument to be akin to, “If you don’t like drunk drivers, stay home.”

Quote:

All that said, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a market for this. I just wish there wasn't. In other words, parents should be the censors not some guy I don't know.

IMO it’s a bit more complex than that. My daughter has seen all kinds of movies that no way I would have allowed her to see. How does this happen? Simple: she goes to visit a friend, and they have a whole shelf full of PG-13 and R-rated DVDs. What are you going to do, tell your kids they can’t go over to any of their friends houses? Demand of their parents, “Look, you need to keep a tight rein on the movie-watching when my kid is visiting?”

This is a major concern for parents these days, I believe. It used to be all you had to do was not let your kids go to R-rated movies, and the theaters wouldn’t let them in. Now, you pretty much have to live on a mountain top if you want to keep your kids from this stuff.

Quote:

For instance... in the movie 300, which I really enjoyed, I could have done without the actual sex scenes in that movie and it would have not effected me one bit on the plot of the movie. I'm not sure how much of a revenue boost it would really be since it seems the censor eligible parts of movies don't appear to effect the majority of people.

I agree. It’s not a revenue issue. Hollywood made plenty of money before they started putting all this “questionable content” in.

I’ve yet to hear of anyone walk away from a theater saying, “Great movie, but it really needed more sex and ‘F’ words.”

Regards,
Wayne

**Mitch G** · **09-12-07, 11:43 AM**

I think there's a bit of the "we'll have to agree to disagree" in this debate.
But, ClearPlay doesn't solve the problem of a kid seeing something bad at a friend's house. I'm guessing if that they are watching R movies at the friend's house, that friend's parents aren't too busy looking at spending money on this device.

I do agree that some PG-13 movies can get quite nasty at times.
I really think they need a PG-15 or R-15 rating to be added between PG-13 and R movies. And, I agree that there is no way to completely isolate one's kids from garbage in movies. Even with ClearPlay you have no guarantees. So, it does fall on just trying to teach the kids to make good choices.

Mitch

**Sonnie** · **09-12-07, 12:15 PM**

Yep... our responsibility is to do the best we can and try to make good choices and teach the same to our children. Kids are going to be exposed to all kinds of things and with the peer pressure surrounding kids, about the only thing that might influence them to make the right choice is what the parents have taught them. Still then it don't always work.

I have often considered investing in a good DVD editing program where I could fade out and in while cutting out the scenes not needed. But there's no way to cut vulgar language in most cases... only a bleep, which in essence is nothing more than a euphemism of sorts.

**Richard W. Haines** · **09-13-07, 08:18 AM**

Mitch G,

Regarding the content of PG-13 movies, it's important to remember that the Classification System
(or "Rating's Game" as detractors call it) has always been very politicized from it's inception. When
Valenti became the new president of the MPAA in 1966 (replacing the deceased Eric Johnson), he
modified the Production Code to allow formerly restricted material providing it was done in 'good taste'.
That was quickly thrown out the window since it was difficult to impossible to define what good taste
was. Two years later the Production Code was abandoned completely and replaced with the
classification system which changed the demographics of the moviegoing public from 'general attendence' to 'targeted viewer'. As I've mentioned elsewhere on this site, this casued a major
shift in theatrical attendence. It was cut in half from 41 million weekly to 21 million weekly from
1968-1975 with the glut of R and X rated films. By 1970 there were more restricted movies released
than G or PG (M/GP).
This is something the industry has never really come to terms with. The bulk of the surviving
moviegoing public is under 17 which means restricted movies will have very limited attendence.
Theaters need the under 17 crowd to stay in business which is why most of the movie palaces
and large screen single cinemas folded during those years. Multi and megaplexes still didn't
resolve the problem in the late seventies and eighties since a sizable portion of the movies
were still restricted. It wasn't until the nineties that the bulk of the product became mainstream
or "PG/PG-13". The question is...are these films classified accurately. In general I would say
they are classified politically...that is, based on the budget and clout of the filmmakers and
distributors. Either that or what's considered objectionable has changed to a great degree since
the ratings system was implemented in 1969. For example, prior to "Titanic" in 1997, topless nudity
would automatically receive an R classification. But "Titanic" was a two hundred million dollar film
and they wouldn't have made their money back with that rating so they pressured the MPAA to
give it the lesser PG-13 rating. Now if an indie movie had topless nuidty, there is no question it
would get an R and they don't have the clout of a big studio to persuade the ratings people to
reduce it. The PG-13 rating was specifically created to address the graphic gore in previously
PG rated films like "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" with it's heart plucking scene that
should've gotten an R. The scene was actually cut from the British release of the movie. But
that film was a big budget production and they needed the under 17 crowd to make money so
the MPAA accomodated them. There's no way they would've done that for a smaller film.
Since the R rated is not desired by the megaplexes because it limits the number of walk in
customers, it's rarely given out today. Films that would've previously received an R are now
PG-13. Although there remains the NC-17 classification (formerly X), the theaters don't want
to show anything with that rating in fear of minors sneaking in and other hassles and it's been
quite some time since a movie was released with that rating. They should probably just eliminate
it.
To a certain degree the entire classification system is meaningless today since all movies are
easily accessible outside of theaters. You can see them on cable, on DVD, rent them from stores
and libraries. It's almost impossible to prevent minors from seeing anything.

**Mitch G** · **09-13-07, 11:01 AM**

Richard, Interesting read - as always.
I never really thought about the heart-plucking scene in Temple of Doom. Since the whole series is meant to be rather comic book-y/Saturday morning serial-y, the heart plucking scene never really bothered me. But, I can see that objectively, it should probably be R-rating material.

I guess in a perfect world, it would be neat to have a real-time rating system based on people's opinions as they left the movie. Perhaps something as simple as "voting" on which age the movie is appropriate for. Of course, kids would horse around with any such system and you would end up with Pixar movies being listed as appropriate for 17 years old or older and The Hills Have Eyes as a kids movie. But, in a perfect world it would work.

Mitch

**tonyvdb** · **09-13-07, 04:13 PM**

I remember when DVDs first came out. Manufacturers stated that one of the possible options on the audio side of things would be an edited or censored audio track If you watch TBS at all most movies are aired this way. I wonder why this was never implemented. You would think that this option wold sell more DVDs to the masses.
Personally I hate watching movies where almost every line spoken has swearing, it gets to be too much after awhile. I also don't like being around people that talk that way.
The other day I was in a park with my three year old and there was a kid not more than 10 years old and he was using every 4 letter name in the book and then some. I told him to go take his potty mouth somewhere else.

**Richard W. Haines** · **09-13-07, 07:03 PM**

tonyvdb,

I always thought that films should be classified not on the amount of nudity, sex, language or
violence but whether they could be imitated by minors within the context of the story. For example,
a film that glorifies gang violence ("The Warriors") should be restricted whereas a gory horror film with monsters on the loose (i.e. "Alien", "The Thing") should not since no minor is going to identify or imitate
with an alien creature attacking people no matter how bloody it is. I would've given the original "Thing" and "Alien" features PG-13 classifications.
The same applies to language, nudity and sex. If it's depicted in a way that minors might imitate, then it should receive the R. The nudity in "Titanic" was not in the context of a sex scene so it wasn't objectionable for minors even though it would've received an R if it was an independent production.
I don't bother to rate my movies anymore. When I book them independently in theaters or
release them on DVD, they go out unrated although they would probably get an R classification if
I wanted to play that game. On my first two features, the MPAA gave me an X for the horror
scenes and I had to cut them to get an R even though far worse material was in Hollywood features
of the time. I put the footage back in for the home video market and haven't bothered with the MPAA since.

**Richard W. Haines** · **09-13-07, 07:22 PM**

Here's a thought I had that would be the polar opposite of this discussion. Rather than 'cleaning'
up movies. Why not 'dirty' them up if they were censored originally.

All kidding aside, when I saw the "restored" version of Pekinpah's "Major Dundee", the one thing missing was the blood squibs and slow motion deaths. In the director's cut they were contained in the action scenes but the producer removed them before release. I would've gone out and shot the close up blood squibs and slow motion shots of horses falling into the river for the action scenes to bring them closer
to Pekinpah's vision and incoporate them into the 'restored' version which adds some of the missing dialogue scenes but not his stylish use of slow motion violence.
I would also track down the missing nudity from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum",
"The Blue Max" and "Blood on Satan's Claw" that was contained on the European versions but
censored for the US release. For example in "Forum", the girls in the bordello bath are topless and facing the camera in foreign prints. In American copies, their backs are to the cameras.

**Wayde** · **09-17-07, 03:17 PM**

I've read about ClearPlay before and even blogged about it, more or less making it the brunt of sarcasm.

Finally my four year old son and I can watch classics like Goodfellas together.

**Sonnie** · **09-18-07, 05:11 PM**

Quote:

Wayde wrote:

I've read about ClearPlay before and even blogged about it, more or less making it the brunt of sarcasm.

Finally my four year old son and I can watch classics like Goodfellas together.

haha... kinda like the old days of silent movies huh?

**Wayde** · **09-19-07, 08:01 AM**

It is indeed one of the joys of life watching movies with my four year old, he's learning to love movies as much as his dad.

He tells me he preferes watching his favorite movies at daddies place because I have a big "movie theater" - as he calls it. Kids definitly hone in on the big picture and multi-channel sound, when the sub rumbles his attention will snap to the screen.

There is a whole industry of family entertainment. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to water down a questionable movie for youngsters.

Yoda might say ... "Watch or watch not, there is no try." Okay, maybe I'm stretching Yoda's influence a but that's where I stand.

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