1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,679 It’s November. 2 00:00:01,679 --> 00:00:03,409 You know what that means! 3 00:00:03,409 --> 00:00:06,654 Hello and welcome to No Effort November, 4 00:00:06,654 --> 00:00:11,595 a series of videos for the month of November in which no effort is made. 5 00:00:11,595 --> 00:00:18,458 Are you a prude who can’t bear the thought of your children being exposed to naughty language in movies and television, 6 00:00:18,458 --> 00:00:23,547 but you just can’t bear the thought of missing out on watching stuff as a family? 7 00:00:23,547 --> 00:00:29,881 Are you looking for a technological solution to free you from the guilt of exposing your kids to bad words? 8 00:00:29,881 --> 00:00:32,106 Is it 1998? 9 00:00:32,106 --> 00:00:37,093 Well then have I got the solution for you, the TV Guardian. 10 00:00:37,093 --> 00:00:44,221 This amazing device attaches to any ordinary television set and transforms that foul-mouthed boob tube 11 00:00:44,221 --> 00:00:47,231 into a proper G-rated gentleman. 12 00:00:47,231 --> 00:00:48,600 Mostly. 13 00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:49,744 How does it work? 14 00:00:49,744 --> 00:00:52,307 State-of-the-art technology, of course! 15 00:00:52,307 --> 00:01:00,077 The TV Guardian filters out foul language from cable or satellite TV AND home video sources like VHS tapes, DVDs, 16 00:01:00,077 --> 00:01:02,429 and let’s not forget Laserdiscs. 17 00:01:02,429 --> 00:01:07,033 Simply disconnect the video source from your TV and connect it to the Guardian. 18 00:01:07,033 --> 00:01:16,034 Then, connect the Guardian to your TV and now you can watch TV as a family without worrying about an F-bomb absolutely ruining your night. 19 00:01:16,034 --> 00:01:17,245 How does it work? 20 00:01:17,245 --> 00:01:19,606 State-of-the-art technology, of course! 21 00:01:19,606 --> 00:01:20,580 Didn’t I just say that? 22 00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:24,528 Uh, let’s begin with a look at this gadget. 23 00:01:24,528 --> 00:01:29,978 The device itself is pretty simple, with two complete sets of composite video and audio jacks - 24 00:01:29,978 --> 00:01:37,267 which are helpfully labeled Right, Left, and Video, but you’ll have to guess which one is the input and which one’s the output. 25 00:01:37,267 --> 00:01:43,732 There’s also a coaxial RF out for old-school TV sets and another RF connection above it which is… 26 00:01:43,732 --> 00:01:45,200 unlabeled. 27 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:52,239 There’s a DC barrel plug for power input, which they did  bother to specify as 9v, 100ma DC, 28 00:01:52,239 --> 00:01:55,618 but forgot to finish the diagram for plug polarity. 29 00:01:55,618 --> 00:01:56,794 Helpful! 30 00:01:56,794 --> 00:02:00,291 We also find two three-position switches for changing settings. 31 00:02:00,291 --> 00:02:01,892 We’ll get back to those. 32 00:02:01,892 --> 00:02:08,532 Lastly, there is one more switch tucked way behind a hole at the top of this panel which is once again unlabeled. 33 00:02:08,532 --> 00:02:10,422 They did a bang-up job here. 34 00:02:10,422 --> 00:02:16,140 That’s the channel 3 or 4 selector for the RF modulator,  which you’d know if you bothered to read the manual. 35 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:20,100 Now I know that this was likely a fairly low-volume product,   36 00:02:20,100 --> 00:02:22,349 and it’s also 20+ years old, 37 00:02:22,349 --> 00:02:26,753 but the cheapness of the construction here cannot be stressed enough. 38 00:02:26,753 --> 00:02:30,491 This looks and feels like an electronics project box, 39 00:02:30,491 --> 00:02:38,704 and frankly if it weren’t for the TV guardian branding I’d think it  literally was an off-the-shelf electronics project box. 40 00:02:38,704 --> 00:02:41,450 Of course there is a custom circuit board in here… 41 00:02:41,450 --> 00:02:44,162 [feigning sadness] oh no, I voided my warranty 42 00:02:44,162 --> 00:02:46,574 but yeah even this is pretty basic. 43 00:02:46,574 --> 00:02:50,100 Just a few chips and an off-the-shelf modulator, essentially. 44 00:02:50,100 --> 00:02:56,434 That’s because this is using much of the same componentry you’d find in all sorts of contemporary video equipment. 45 00:02:56,434 --> 00:02:59,244 It’s just got a bit of a trick up its sleeve. 46 00:02:59,244 --> 00:03:04,262 The device uses our old friend closed captioning to watch out for profamity. 47 00:03:04,262 --> 00:03:08,016 Since I already made a video on that topic I won’t go deep into it here. 48 00:03:08,016 --> 00:03:09,949 Plus it is November. 49 00:03:09,949 --> 00:03:12,490 But in the US, starting in the 1980’s 50 00:03:12,490 --> 00:03:17,948 television broadcasts and home video formats began regularly incorporating closed captioning 51 00:03:17,948 --> 00:03:24,064 in the form of a hidden data stream across the length of Line 21 in the analog video signal. 52 00:03:24,064 --> 00:03:27,158 Line 21 is near the end of the vertical blanking interval, 53 00:03:27,158 --> 00:03:31,974 which is a string of blank lines that help an analog television draw the image. 54 00:03:31,974 --> 00:03:38,794 While you’re not supposed to be able to see it, in the digital age we’re starting to find parts of it pop out occasionally, 55 00:03:38,794 --> 00:03:41,165 like here in Frasier. 56 00:03:41,165 --> 00:03:45,227 These blinky dashes are encoding text and basic  formatting, 57 00:03:45,227 --> 00:03:50,291 and they get extracted as high-low pulses by a television set, or a separate device, 58 00:03:50,291 --> 00:03:53,832 and decoded to generate text atop the image. 59 00:03:53,832 --> 00:03:58,986 This was a way to add captioning for those who desired  it without making it part of the broadcast image, 60 00:03:58,986 --> 00:04:01,914 hence the name closed captioning. 61 00:04:01,914 --> 00:04:09,638 Now, an older analog television like this one, mindlessly drawing glowing lines on the face of a cathode ray tube over and over again, 62 00:04:09,638 --> 00:04:15,433 doesn’t process what it’s doing and this picture tube actually  draws the lines, blinky dashes and everything. 63 00:04:15,900 --> 00:04:19,512 But they’re getting drawn outside the visible area, 64 00:04:19,512 --> 00:04:21,480 somewhere like here. 65 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:27,424 That’s thanks to overscan: the actual image is blown out just a bit beyond the edges of the screen 66 00:04:27,424 --> 00:04:35,083 which was necessary due to the vagaries of analog video and since most picture tubes didn’t have perfectly rectangular faces. 67 00:04:35,083 --> 00:04:40,380 So you weren’t ever gonna see this datastream unless there was  something wrong with your television set. 68 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:45,974 But modern displays what with their neat  grids of pixels and discrete resolutions   69 00:04:45,974 --> 00:04:50,160 generally don’t stretch the image they  are told to display beyond their borders.   70 00:04:50,940 --> 00:04:54,952 Some do for silly reasons which makes using  them as a computer monitor very annoying 71 00:04:54,952 --> 00:04:58,601 until you find the “just scan” setting buried in the menus but... 72 00:04:59,032 --> 00:05:05,125 for the most part, a modern display or television will show the entirety of whatever you throw at it. 73 00:05:05,125 --> 00:05:10,882 And some less-than-careful analog-to-digital transfers have gotten done over the years, 74 00:05:10,882 --> 00:05:14,055 which captured part of the vertical blanking interval. 75 00:05:14,055 --> 00:05:17,051 That’s what’s happening in this episode of Frasier. 76 00:05:17,051 --> 00:05:27,708 Whoever did the transfer didn’t take care to ensure the 480 rows of pixels they’d capture from the 525 lines of video started at, like, line 23 or 24. 77 00:05:27,708 --> 00:05:31,020 Or perhaps they just thought overscan was gonna live on forever. 78 00:05:32,340 --> 00:05:35,182 Anyway, back to the TV Guardian. 79 00:05:35,182 --> 00:05:39,607 Baked into its programming is a dictionary of offensive words and phrases which, 80 00:05:39,607 --> 00:05:40,659 for science, 81 00:05:40,659 --> 00:05:45,388 I’d love to see but it’s not written anywhere in the manual, aw shucks. 82 00:05:45,388 --> 00:05:51,561 Now, when it’s turned on and active,  it decodes the captioning data from line 21. 83 00:05:51,561 --> 00:05:55,779 If it finds a match with one of those  objectionable things in its dictionary, 84 00:05:55,779 --> 00:05:58,916 the guardian jumps into action and… 85 00:05:58,916 --> 00:06:02,230 mutes the audio to protect the innocent. 86 00:06:02,230 --> 00:06:03,329 That… 87 00:06:03,329 --> 00:06:04,821 that’s what it does. 88 00:06:04,821 --> 00:06:08,344 Now, I may sound like I’m making fun of this little gadget. 89 00:06:08,344 --> 00:06:15,583 And I must admit that this particular form of parental control seems a bit… odd to my ears, 90 00:06:15,583 --> 00:06:18,360 but the way it’s done is actually pretty clever. 91 00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:23,176 Here, let’s all settle down as a wholesome  family and watch 92 00:06:23,176 --> 00:06:25,664 Goodfellas together with the Guardian turned on. 93 00:06:27,033 --> 00:06:31,350 Profanity is definitely the only objectionable part of that movie, right? 94 00:06:31,806 --> 00:06:33,802 [ambient road noise] 95 00:06:34,740 --> 00:06:39,914 So far it looks like a typical movie-going experience, but watch what happens here. 96 00:06:40,751 --> 00:06:43,763 [clunky thud, ambient noise] 97 00:06:43,763 --> 00:06:46,851 [audio cuts out] 98 00:06:46,851 --> 00:06:48,303 [Jimmy - 99 00:06:48,303 --> 00:06:49,574 What's up? 100 00:06:49,574 --> 00:06:50,994 Did I hear something? 101 00:06:50,994 --> 00:06:52,200 What the F - ] [audio cuts again] 102 00:06:52,200 --> 00:06:54,267 Not only was the audio muted, 103 00:06:54,267 --> 00:07:01,364 but when that happened the closed captioning was placed on-screen so it can be read and stand in for the missing dialogue. 104 00:07:01,364 --> 00:07:08,003 And that captioning was altered to remove the offensive word, in this case "fudge." 105 00:07:08,003 --> 00:07:12,375 But it didn’t simply remove the word, it also took out the the. 106 00:07:12,375 --> 00:07:14,808 “What the fudge is that” became, simply, 107 00:07:16,260 --> 00:07:20,654 This sort of word swap or rephrasing is done whenever necessary. 108 00:07:20,654 --> 00:07:24,850 And it’s sometimes pretty good at keeping the  context intact. 109 00:07:24,850 --> 00:07:27,031 Like, for instance in this scene. 110 00:07:27,031 --> 00:07:30,097 [ How could I go back to school after that and pledge allegiance to the flag and - ] 111 00:07:30,097 --> 00:07:33,361 [audio cut] 112 00:07:33,480 --> 00:07:34,856 [sound returns] 113 00:07:34,856 --> 00:07:40,342 Good government “bull excrement” was replaced  with good government "baloney." 114 00:07:40,342 --> 00:07:44,248 [ For us, to live any other way was nuts. T - ] 115 00:07:44,248 --> 00:07:52,320 Here, the line “to us, those goody good people who work 'shirty' jobs” got turned into “who work crud jobs”. 116 00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:56,760 Cruddy would have been a better fit but still, not bad. 117 00:07:56,760 --> 00:08:03,607 As much as this is clever, it’s really doing this because of a limitation stemming from how the captions work. 118 00:08:03,607 --> 00:08:10,936 Captioning data is sent in spurts which encode all the text to be displayed on screen - and where to place it. 119 00:08:10,936 --> 00:08:14,136 Entire sentences are often displayed at once, 120 00:08:14,136 --> 00:08:18,826 in fact a call and response between two characters is sometimes on screen. 121 00:08:18,826 --> 00:08:22,876 The text will stay there until the next spurt of data is received 122 00:08:22,876 --> 00:08:27,556 which either contains more text and formatting or says to clear it. 123 00:08:27,556 --> 00:08:32,263 So, if a chunk of captioning data contains a bad word or phrase, 124 00:08:32,263 --> 00:08:37,297 the TV Guardian knows it will be spoken at some point the text is displayed, 125 00:08:37,297 --> 00:08:39,463 but it doesn’t know exactly when. 126 00:08:39,463 --> 00:08:45,586 So the only thing it can do is mute the audio for the entire  time that caption block appears on the screen. 127 00:08:45,586 --> 00:08:48,408 [Partner. Is that what you've been trying to tell me, you want me to be part - ] 128 00:08:48,408 --> 00:08:52,211 [audio cut] 129 00:08:52,211 --> 00:08:54,702 [It's not even fair, no?] 130 00:08:55,800 --> 00:09:01,056 As removing an entire sentence or more could  very easily cause you to lose the plot,   131 00:09:01,056 --> 00:09:06,343 it has little choice but to display the  text with the objectionable parts altered. 132 00:09:06,343 --> 00:09:08,544 Now that is an optional feature. 133 00:09:08,544 --> 00:09:15,544 One of the two option switches we haven’t talked about yet is labeled "caption," and you can choose between On, Cuss, and Off. 134 00:09:15,544 --> 00:09:21,562 So far we’ve seen it in the cuss setting, but if you like, you can move  the switch to “off” — 135 00:09:21,562 --> 00:09:30,224 using a tiny screwdriver or something because they’re recessed in a way which I can’t decide if was deliberate for parental control reasons or just bad design 136 00:09:30,224 --> 00:09:35,388 — and that will simply have it mute the audio and leave you wondering what was said. 137 00:09:35,388 --> 00:09:38,095 I don’t know why you’d want that but you can do it! 138 00:09:38,095 --> 00:09:43,848 You can also have it leave captions on continuously,  leaving nice and friendly phrases unaltered but, 139 00:09:43,848 --> 00:09:47,210 whenever someone uses a mouth which makes  you wonder if they kiss their mother with it, 140 00:09:47,210 --> 00:09:51,900 it’ll cut the audio out and make whatever  alterations to the written dialogue it sees fit. 141 00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:55,500 You can also choose how strict you want the filtering to be.   142 00:09:56,040 --> 00:10:01,980 If phrases like “My god” bother you, you’ll want the extra strict enforcement turned on. 143 00:10:01,980 --> 00:10:04,578 But if you’re just a little bit more lenient, 144 00:10:04,578 --> 00:10:09,323 you can choose the mild setting which lets such religious-adjacent phrases through, 145 00:10:09,323 --> 00:10:13,110 in addition to less-objectionable potty-mouth words. 146 00:10:13,110 --> 00:10:16,098 Now these are printed in the manual. 147 00:10:16,098 --> 00:10:25,259 I won’t read them all off but it includes such bangers as balls, wuss, up yours, forms of screw, and even 148 00:10:25,259 --> 00:10:27,360 "H E Double Hockey Sticks." 149 00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:34,439 And if you only care that your children don’t hear these words but you yourself are in for a good profanity-laden evening, 150 00:10:34,439 --> 00:10:36,990 you can also turn off the filtering altogether. 151 00:10:37,440 --> 00:10:41,997 Now, it’s probably obvious but this method has a few key weaknesses. 152 00:10:41,997 --> 00:10:47,366 We’ve already discussed how it has to mute entire sentences or more but, to reiterate, 153 00:10:47,366 --> 00:10:50,571 it has to mute entire sentences or more. 154 00:10:50,571 --> 00:10:57,943 And its decisions on how to fill in what it  censors are good most of the time but can also be… 155 00:10:57,943 --> 00:11:01,400 really weird or even just bad. 156 00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:04,453 Here’s a list of all the examples that I’ve found. 157 00:11:04,453 --> 00:11:10,292 I’ll try to keep this family friendly, folks but you might not agree  with all my decisions here so just be warned. 158 00:11:10,292 --> 00:11:14,476 We already established that "excrement" turns into crud, 159 00:11:14,476 --> 00:11:18,928 but if it’s phrased as “oh, shirt” then it becomes “oh, man.” 160 00:11:18,928 --> 00:11:20,307 Pretty good. 161 00:11:20,307 --> 00:11:27,035 The phrase that rhymes with "missed off" gets changed to teed off (or just teed). 162 00:11:27,035 --> 00:11:29,073 Prick becomes jerk. 163 00:11:29,073 --> 00:11:32,271 Bastard also turns into jerk. 164 00:11:32,271 --> 00:11:36,323 Uh… "rocksucker" was also turned into jerk. 165 00:11:36,323 --> 00:11:38,399 Really there’s a lotta jerks. 166 00:11:38,399 --> 00:11:42,624 But slut, ah well that turned into flirt. 167 00:11:42,624 --> 00:11:46,328 It’s fine with moron. That’s cool with the guardian. 168 00:11:46,328 --> 00:11:51,794 The n word simply becomes ellipses which… yeah that’s probably for the best. 169 00:11:51,794 --> 00:11:56,139 A word now commonly considered a slur became simply “gay” 170 00:11:56,139 --> 00:11:59,678 so the caption “he’s treating me like a gay” popped up here. 171 00:11:59,678 --> 00:12:00,886 Interesting. 172 00:12:00,886 --> 00:12:08,287 And then on the strict setting, balls gets turned into tail, which is funny because that word can also just mean… balls 173 00:12:08,287 --> 00:12:10,819 or be a name as happened here. 174 00:12:10,819 --> 00:12:14,762 Oh, and the exclamation "My God" becomes Man, which… 175 00:12:14,762 --> 00:12:15,960 I guess that’s fine. 176 00:12:16,680 --> 00:12:19,344 But then there’s the F-bomb. 177 00:12:19,344 --> 00:12:26,041 As any sailor mouth knows that particular word can mean many things and results to censor it will vary. 178 00:12:26,041 --> 00:12:27,807 Here’s a decent example. 179 00:12:27,807 --> 00:12:31,420 "Maybe it’s me, I’m a little forked up." turns into 180 00:12:31,420 --> 00:12:34,168 "Maybe it’s me, I’m a little 'messed' up." 181 00:12:34,168 --> 00:12:36,421 Great work! That worked fine. 182 00:12:36,421 --> 00:12:42,217 And it did a pretty good job earlier when it removed the the in "what the fudge is that?" 183 00:12:42,217 --> 00:12:45,858 But, uh, if it’s ever phrased as a verb, 184 00:12:45,858 --> 00:12:49,300 the guardian likes to change it to "wow." 185 00:12:49,300 --> 00:12:53,128 Like, you'll wow everything up. Or, go wow yourself. 186 00:12:53,128 --> 00:12:55,998 I mean, OK. 187 00:12:55,998 --> 00:13:02,921 Uh, if it see’s “fork’n” the word just gets removed and an errant apostrophe is left behind. 188 00:13:02,921 --> 00:13:11,023 And it appears to change some instances to “go away” which makes sense for “fork off” I guess but, 189 00:13:11,023 --> 00:13:14,886 "go go away your mother" doesn’t really mean anything intelligible. 190 00:13:14,886 --> 00:13:17,110 That’s a total fail. 191 00:13:17,110 --> 00:13:21,780 Oh and, F... trucker is another word that becomes jerk. 192 00:13:22,380 --> 00:13:25,380 But even if it made perfect decisions all the time,   193 00:13:25,380 --> 00:13:30,957 it first relies on closed captioning to be A) there in the first place 194 00:13:30,957 --> 00:13:34,297 B) accurate and not itself censored and 195 00:13:34,297 --> 00:13:38,592 C) properly timed and in sync with the speech. 196 00:13:38,592 --> 00:13:42,971 By the time this thing was released most everything had closed captions in it, 197 00:13:42,971 --> 00:13:47,189 but with the rise of the DVD, some studios went rogue. 198 00:13:47,189 --> 00:13:50,640 And in fact, the manual calls out Universal for doing this. 199 00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:55,991 See, DVD players are capable of injecting their own line 21 captioning data 200 00:13:55,991 --> 00:14:00,168 so analog TVs hooked up to them can decode it on their own. 201 00:14:00,168 --> 00:14:02,478 Here’s an example with The Birdcage, 202 00:14:02,478 --> 00:14:08,059 another film which I’m sure in the eyes of a TV Guardian buyer would be completely unobjectionable 203 00:14:08,059 --> 00:14:10,504 if only it didn’t have cuss words. 204 00:14:11,580 --> 00:14:16,624 But of course, DVD players could also display closed captions themselves. 205 00:14:16,624 --> 00:14:21,872 And far more capably, offering captions in multiple languages,  commentary tracks, 206 00:14:21,872 --> 00:14:26,054 and in any style, font, or color the publisher desired. 207 00:14:26,054 --> 00:14:36,000 Universal, it seems, deemed the newfound capabilities of DVD enough to negate the need for old-fashioned line 21 caption support in their releases, 208 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:38,287 at least circa 2000. 209 00:14:38,287 --> 00:14:44,460 So for Universal's DVDs the Guardian has no idea what’s being said, and it’s f-bombs galore. 210 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:49,980 Another issue comes from captions which don’t exactly match the dialog.   211 00:14:49,980 --> 00:14:54,164 This is actually quite common, usually when dialog is fast-paced. 212 00:14:54,164 --> 00:14:57,073 [ It was there that I knew that I belonged. 213 00:14:57,073 --> 00:15:01,523 To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood that was full of nobodies. 214 00:15:01,523 --> 00:15:03,083 They weren't like anybody else. 215 00:15:03,083 --> 00:15:04,836 I mean, they did whatever they wanted. 216 00:15:04,836 --> 00:15:08,771 They double parked in front of a hydrant and nobody ever gave them a ticket. 217 00:15:08,771 --> 00:15:12,598 In the summer, when they played cards all night, nobody ever called the cops.] 218 00:15:12,953 --> 00:15:20,382 For instance, in Goodfellas, the Guardian correctly catches that terrible version of “ticked” when Henry’s narration says 219 00:15:20,382 --> 00:15:22,681 “my father was always ticked off,” 220 00:15:22,681 --> 00:15:30,950 but just after this Henry repeats “he was ticked” at the beginning of three separate phrases in something of a run-on sentence. 221 00:15:30,950 --> 00:15:37,950 The captioning is structured more loosely, though, with the offending word only placed in the beginning of that sentence. 222 00:15:37,950 --> 00:15:42,701 So the audio is unmuted and the last one is… missed. 223 00:15:42,701 --> 00:15:47,615 [ ... was in a wheelchair, he was pissed that there were seven of us living in such a tiny house] 224 00:15:47,615 --> 00:15:49,934 Won’t somebody think of the children? 225 00:15:49,934 --> 00:15:54,460 Then of course, what if whoever wrote the captions  was a prude who censored them? 226 00:15:54,460 --> 00:15:58,646 Instead of actually writing out H E Double Hockey Sticks they could have written 227 00:15:58,646 --> 00:16:00,862 "H asterisk asterisk asteroid." 228 00:16:02,029 --> 00:16:10,256 Now, doing that is very bad captioning practice - after all, if adults are choosing to see a movie with profanity and rely on captions, 229 00:16:10,256 --> 00:16:14,707 they’re not seeing the movie they chose to see if the captions are censored. 230 00:16:14,707 --> 00:16:17,523 So in the grand scheme that should be rare. 231 00:16:17,777 --> 00:16:23,940 But oh the sweet irony of a prudish transcription causing  profanity to slip through the TV Guardian. 232 00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:26,983 Lastly, there’s caption timing. 233 00:16:26,983 --> 00:16:31,588 Live events rely on stenographers furiously stenographering what’s spoken 234 00:16:31,588 --> 00:16:34,862 and that leads to a substantial delay in the captions. 235 00:16:34,862 --> 00:16:38,760 So better hope those sportscasters aren’t potty mouths. 236 00:16:38,760 --> 00:16:42,308 Scripted content is generally better, but it’s not perfect. 237 00:16:42,308 --> 00:16:46,498 The Guardian let quite a few things slip through in Goodfellas. 238 00:16:46,498 --> 00:16:49,843 To be fair, they don’t claim perfection on the box. 239 00:16:49,843 --> 00:16:54,103 Another somewhat odd choice was an inability to censor any RF source. 240 00:16:54,103 --> 00:16:58,127 There is a coaxial input but this is just a pass-through, 241 00:16:58,127 --> 00:17:05,543 and as a matter-of-fact this shipped with a red cover over the top connection and there’s a note in the manual that basically says “don’t use this.” 242 00:17:05,940 --> 00:17:10,332 Yes, it has a built-in RF modulator for outputting to older TVs, 243 00:17:10,332 --> 00:17:14,758 but the censoring function only works on the composite input. 244 00:17:14,758 --> 00:17:19,822 So if you want this to work with live TV, you’ll either need to have satellite or cable, 245 00:17:19,822 --> 00:17:27,219 or you’ll need to use your VCRs TV tuner for over-the-air broadcasts from now on and hope your kids don’t figure that part out.   246 00:17:27,660 --> 00:17:32,340 I imagine this was mainly a cost-cutting measure but it still seems silly. 247 00:17:32,340 --> 00:17:35,213 Oh, and since there’s only one input… 248 00:17:35,213 --> 00:17:42,406 well that gets fun when you have a cable box, a VCR, and a DVD player and you'd like them all to be Guardianed. 249 00:17:42,406 --> 00:17:48,181 Better hope your VCR is fancy enough to have two inputs, and then you can run everything through it. 250 00:17:48,181 --> 00:17:52,100 But if you’re not so lucky, you’ll need some sort of video switcher. 251 00:17:52,100 --> 00:17:54,488 The manual even says as much. 252 00:17:54,488 --> 00:17:58,885 The limitations we just went over are all technical ones, though. 253 00:17:58,885 --> 00:18:02,618 There’s also a pretty glaring conceptual hurdle. 254 00:18:02,618 --> 00:18:06,287 I chose Goodfellas and The Birdcage to demonstrate this 255 00:18:06,287 --> 00:18:15,293 because I have a feeling the sort of person who bought the TV Guardian might object to some of the visuals and themes in those films. 256 00:18:15,293 --> 00:18:16,527 Just a hunch. 257 00:18:17,060 --> 00:18:22,186 The TV Guardian can’t do anything about the content or what’s on the screen; 258 00:18:22,186 --> 00:18:27,852 it can only ever be a pretty-good but not perfect profanity  filter. 259 00:18:27,852 --> 00:18:31,725 So I’m somewhat perplexed by the perceived value here. 260 00:18:31,725 --> 00:18:36,480 You’re still gonna need to screen for  whatever you might not want your kids… seeing! 261 00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:43,405 I suppose there’s a lot of content out there which is otherwise pretty tame but which has a few sailor mouth moments. 262 00:18:43,405 --> 00:18:47,686 But it’s really only that middle-ground that this can do anything for. 263 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:54,660 And if I may be so bold, if you’re that worried about your kids hearing the occasional bad word,   264 00:18:55,318 --> 00:18:56,944 well you better not let them leave the house. 265 00:18:58,339 --> 00:19:05,040 That was a joke, just wanna be clear, but yeah - there’s a lot of profanity outside of television, hate to break it to you. 266 00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:09,420 Still, though, as much as I think  this is silly and not at all for me,  267 00:19:09,902 --> 00:19:13,346 I will tip my hat to it for being pretty clever. 268 00:19:13,346 --> 00:19:16,616 And, if you think there’s some merit in this idea, 269 00:19:16,616 --> 00:19:19,924 or maybe you know someone in your life who would  have loved one of these, 270 00:19:19,924 --> 00:19:21,775 well I have good news! 271 00:19:22,140 --> 00:19:27,900 This company still exists, and they make HDMI  versions now so you can guard your Netflix. 272 00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:31,073 Except, not actually. 273 00:19:31,909 --> 00:19:34,680 Yeah, they’re  still relying on line 21 captions. 274 00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:39,963 Probably because HDMI doesn’t actually carry captioning data. 275 00:19:39,963 --> 00:19:47,280 The website makes it pretty clear that whatever you’re plugging into the new versions of this stills needs to have a composite video output for it to work,   276 00:19:47,940 --> 00:19:50,775 so the HDMI video feed is… 277 00:19:50,775 --> 00:19:54,406 I guess just a passthrough that it draws captions on top of? 278 00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:59,040 I dunno, I’d investigate further but this is No Effort November. 279 00:19:59,580 --> 00:20:02,197 Before I go, I want to do two more things. 280 00:20:02,197 --> 00:20:07,213 First, I want to thank my long-time patron Colin for sending this thing to me. 281 00:20:07,213 --> 00:20:13,604 It’s very much not either of our jams, but it certainly is an intriguing use of closed captioning. 282 00:20:13,604 --> 00:20:15,259 And second… 283 00:20:15,259 --> 00:20:20,751 well I think it’s time I finally rip the band aid off about a certain video topic I promised. 284 00:20:20,751 --> 00:20:26,694 In my video on closed captioning, I said I’d be making a video on Teletext. 285 00:20:26,694 --> 00:20:29,070 And I said I'd do that “Soon” 286 00:20:30,313 --> 00:20:32,744 That was almost four years ago. 287 00:20:33,074 --> 00:20:33,990 So what happened? 288 00:20:34,620 --> 00:20:39,195 Well, I don’t think I’m the right person to tell that story. 289 00:20:39,195 --> 00:20:45,046 I’ve never used it, and as such I really have no enthusiasm or nostalgia for it. 290 00:20:45,604 --> 00:20:49,521 For those that don’t know, which is mainly people outside of Europe, 291 00:20:49,521 --> 00:20:59,911 teletext was an earlier and way, way, waaaaay more capable use of the vertical blanking interval for sending data along with television transmissions. 292 00:20:59,911 --> 00:21:05,291 And I cannot stress the way way wayyyyyy more capable part enough. 293 00:21:05,291 --> 00:21:07,246 It wasn’t just captions. 294 00:21:07,246 --> 00:21:16,440 It was full-on news, weather, sports information, trivia games, and even computer programs all sent alongside ordinary television. 295 00:21:16,980 --> 00:21:22,174 For whatever reason, probably the lack  of a nationalized television broadcaster,   296 00:21:22,174 --> 00:21:24,581 that never got any traction here. 297 00:21:24,581 --> 00:21:29,436 Americans just don’t know what teletext is or was. 298 00:21:29,436 --> 00:21:33,300 We never had it aside from small-scale tests here and there. 299 00:21:34,140 --> 00:21:41,708 Those who live where teletext is common might be surprised that our closed captions work just fine on VHS cassettes - 300 00:21:41,708 --> 00:21:45,117 see our standard was designed with that in mind. 301 00:21:45,117 --> 00:21:51,900 Teletext on the other hand is very high-bandwidth, and television sets couldn’t decode it from a consumer videotape. 302 00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:59,790 However, some really cool people have developed  software techniques to recover the teletext information from home recordings, 303 00:21:59,790 --> 00:22:02,940 and archives are being built and expanded as we speak. 304 00:22:03,660 --> 00:22:08,733 That’s really interesting to me, but without a personal… 305 00:22:08,733 --> 00:22:13,200 connection to it, I just won’t give the story justice. 306 00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:15,931 I’ll leave that for someone else to tackle. 307 00:22:15,931 --> 00:22:21,493 I’ve put links to some info about Teletext and to the archive, if you're curious, down in the description. 308 00:22:21,493 --> 00:22:24,191 But yeah, a teletext video… 309 00:22:24,540 --> 00:22:26,784 isn’t gonna happen on this channel. 310 00:22:26,784 --> 00:22:30,014 I bet there are some pretty cool videos on YouTube right now, though - 311 00:22:30,014 --> 00:22:31,772 ohhh goodness. 312 00:22:31,772 --> 00:22:33,691 No. Nooo… 313 00:22:34,224 --> 00:22:37,408 Why are these popping up? They have nothing to do… 314 00:22:38,270 --> 00:22:43,708 OK, well if any of you out there have been holding off to make a video, waiting for me to do something, 315 00:22:43,708 --> 00:22:47,318 you go right ahead - I’ll even be on the lookout for ‘em. 316 00:22:47,318 --> 00:22:51,090 And this one’s pretty good if you want to learn a bit about it right now. 317 00:22:52,155 --> 00:22:53,316 Ok bye. 318 00:22:54,204 --> 00:22:56,847 ♫ profanely smooth jazz ♫ 319 00:22:58,039 --> 00:23:01,140 Are you looking for a technological solution to your fear of 320 00:23:02,460 --> 00:23:03,307 nope. 321 00:23:03,307 --> 00:23:08,223 Are you a prude who can't bear the thought  of your children being exposed to [runs out of air] 322 00:23:08,223 --> 00:23:10,159 oh god I didn't take a breath at the right time 323 00:23:10,159 --> 00:23:13,038 Of course there is a custom circuit breaker... circuit board. 324 00:23:13,038 --> 00:23:14,936 It's not a circuit breaker! 325 00:23:14,936 --> 00:23:19,140 Captioning data is sent in spurts which encode all the text tood 326 00:23:20,940 --> 00:23:22,020 ugh! 327 00:23:22,020 --> 00:23:27,187 Captioning data is sent in spurts which encode all the text to be displayed on - 328 00:23:27,187 --> 00:23:28,077 [laughs] 329 00:23:28,077 --> 00:23:29,444 That's a mouthful! 330 00:23:29,444 --> 00:23:31,847 Which encode all the text to be displayed! 331 00:23:31,847 --> 00:23:34,596 ...which encode all the text to be displayed on 332 00:23:34,596 --> 00:23:36,985 I made it! But I didn't think I did! 333 00:23:36,985 --> 00:23:39,387 ...which encode all the text to bees 334 00:23:39,387 --> 00:23:40,501 My god! 335 00:23:40,501 --> 00:23:43,764 All the text to be. Text to be. 336 00:23:43,764 --> 00:23:46,218 That's... all the text to be 337 00:23:46,218 --> 00:23:47,447 Haha, wow! 338 00:23:47,777 --> 00:23:49,443 As much as... 339 00:23:49,443 --> 00:23:51,383 [holding in laughter] 340 00:23:51,383 --> 00:23:52,724 Oh god. 341 00:23:52,724 --> 00:23:54,833 This is like Dietz Nuts all over again. 342 00:23:55,746 --> 00:23:58,119 It's not even supposed to be funny! 343 00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:03,221 It first relies on closed captioning to A) be there in the first place, B) 344 00:24:03,830 --> 00:24:07,363 [questioning, contemplative silence] 345 00:24:07,743 --> 00:24:09,590 Oh, yeah that's correct. 346 00:24:10,402 --> 00:24:10,902 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 347 00:24:10,902 --> 00:24:11,402 ______________ _______ __ ____ ____ 348 00:24:11,402 --> 00:24:11,902 ______________ __ __ 349 00:24:11,902 --> 00:24:13,822 SO, WHAT'D YA THINK? 350 00:24:13,822 --> 00:24:14,322 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 351 00:24:14,322 --> 00:24:14,822 ______________ __ __ 352 00:24:14,822 --> 00:24:15,322 ______________ __ __ ________ __ 353 00:24:15,322 --> 00:24:17,575 PRETTY COOL VIDEO, HUH? 354 00:24:17,575 --> 00:24:18,075 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 355 00:24:18,075 --> 00:24:18,575 ______________ __ __ 356 00:24:18,575 --> 00:24:19,075 ______________ __ __ ________ __ 357 00:24:19,075 --> 00:24:19,575 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 358 00:24:19,575 --> 00:24:20,075 ______________ __ __ 359 00:24:20,075 --> 00:24:20,575 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 360 00:24:20,575 --> 00:24:23,716 THIS GAG VIOLATES THE SPIRIT OF NO EFFORT NOVEMBER 361 00:24:23,716 --> 00:24:24,216 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 362 00:24:24,216 --> 00:24:24,716 ______________ __ _____ __ __ 363 00:24:24,716 --> 00:24:25,216 ______________ __ __ 364 00:24:25,216 --> 00:24:28,716 FOR SHAME