WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.679 It’s November. 00:00:01.679 --> 00:00:03.409 You know what that means! 00:00:03.409 --> 00:00:06.654 Hello and welcome to No Effort November, 00:00:06.654 --> 00:00:11.595 a series of videos for the month of November in which no effort is made. 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, 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? 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? 00:00:29.881 --> 00:00:32.106 Is it 1998? 00:00:32.106 --> 00:00:37.093 Well then have I got the solution for you, the TV Guardian. 00:00:37.093 --> 00:00:44.221 This amazing device attaches to any ordinary television set and transforms that foul-mouthed boob tube 00:00:44.221 --> 00:00:47.231 into a proper G-rated gentleman. 00:00:47.231 --> 00:00:48.600 Mostly. 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:49.744 How does it work? 00:00:49.744 --> 00:00:52.307 State-of-the-art technology, of course! 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, 00:01:00.077 --> 00:01:02.429 and let’s not forget Laserdiscs. 00:01:02.429 --> 00:01:07.033 Simply disconnect the video source from your TV and connect it to the Guardian. 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. 00:01:16.034 --> 00:01:17.245 How does it work? 00:01:17.245 --> 00:01:19.606 State-of-the-art technology, of course! 00:01:19.606 --> 00:01:20.580 Didn’t I just say that? 00:01:21.360 --> 00:01:24.528 Uh, let’s begin with a look at this gadget. 00:01:24.528 --> 00:01:29.978 The device itself is pretty simple, with two complete sets of composite video and audio jacks - 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. 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… 00:01:43.732 --> 00:01:45.200 unlabeled. 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, 00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:55.618 but forgot to finish the diagram for plug polarity. 00:01:55.618 --> 00:01:56.794 Helpful! 00:01:56.794 --> 00:02:00.291 We also find two three-position switches for changing settings. 00:02:00.291 --> 00:02:01.892 We’ll get back to those. 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. 00:02:08.532 --> 00:02:10.422 They did a bang-up job here. 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. 00:02:16.680 --> 00:02:20.100 Now I know that this was likely a fairly low-volume product,   00:02:20.100 --> 00:02:22.349 and it’s also 20+ years old, 00:02:22.349 --> 00:02:26.753 but the cheapness of the construction here cannot be stressed enough. 00:02:26.753 --> 00:02:30.491 This looks and feels like an electronics project box, 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. 00:02:38.704 --> 00:02:41.450 Of course there is a custom circuit board in here… 00:02:41.450 --> 00:02:44.162 [feigning sadness] oh no, I voided my warranty 00:02:44.162 --> 00:02:46.574 but yeah even this is pretty basic. 00:02:46.574 --> 00:02:50.100 Just a few chips and an off-the-shelf modulator, essentially. 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. 00:02:56.434 --> 00:02:59.244 It’s just got a bit of a trick up its sleeve. 00:02:59.244 --> 00:03:04.262 The device uses our old friend closed captioning to watch out for profamity. 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. 00:03:08.016 --> 00:03:09.949 Plus it is November. 00:03:09.949 --> 00:03:12.490 But in the US, starting in the 1980’s 00:03:12.490 --> 00:03:17.948 television broadcasts and home video formats began regularly incorporating closed captioning 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. 00:03:24.064 --> 00:03:27.158 Line 21 is near the end of the vertical blanking interval, 00:03:27.158 --> 00:03:31.974 which is a string of blank lines that help an analog television draw the image. 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, 00:03:38.794 --> 00:03:41.165 like here in Frasier. 00:03:41.165 --> 00:03:45.227 These blinky dashes are encoding text and basic  formatting, 00:03:45.227 --> 00:03:50.291 and they get extracted as high-low pulses by a television set, or a separate device, 00:03:50.291 --> 00:03:53.832 and decoded to generate text atop the image. 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, 00:03:58.986 --> 00:04:01.914 hence the name closed captioning. 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, 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. 00:04:15.900 --> 00:04:19.512 But they’re getting drawn outside the visible area, 00:04:19.512 --> 00:04:21.480 somewhere like here. 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 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. 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. 00:04:40.920 --> 00:04:45.974 But modern displays what with their neat  grids of pixels and discrete resolutions   00:04:45.974 --> 00:04:50.160 generally don’t stretch the image they  are told to display beyond their borders.   00:04:50.940 --> 00:04:54.952 Some do for silly reasons which makes using  them as a computer monitor very annoying 00:04:54.952 --> 00:04:58.601 until you find the “just scan” setting buried in the menus but... 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. 00:05:05.125 --> 00:05:10.882 And some less-than-careful analog-to-digital transfers have gotten done over the years, 00:05:10.882 --> 00:05:14.055 which captured part of the vertical blanking interval. 00:05:14.055 --> 00:05:17.051 That’s what’s happening in this episode of Frasier. 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. 00:05:27.708 --> 00:05:31.020 Or perhaps they just thought overscan was gonna live on forever. 00:05:32.340 --> 00:05:35.182 Anyway, back to the TV Guardian. 00:05:35.182 --> 00:05:39.607 Baked into its programming is a dictionary of offensive words and phrases which, 00:05:39.607 --> 00:05:40.659 for science, 00:05:40.659 --> 00:05:45.388 I’d love to see but it’s not written anywhere in the manual, aw shucks. 00:05:45.388 --> 00:05:51.561 Now, when it’s turned on and active,  it decodes the captioning data from line 21. 00:05:51.561 --> 00:05:55.779 If it finds a match with one of those  objectionable things in its dictionary, 00:05:55.779 --> 00:05:58.916 the guardian jumps into action and… 00:05:58.916 --> 00:06:02.230 mutes the audio to protect the innocent. 00:06:02.230 --> 00:06:03.329 That… 00:06:03.329 --> 00:06:04.821 that’s what it does. 00:06:04.821 --> 00:06:08.344 Now, I may sound like I’m making fun of this little gadget. 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, 00:06:15.583 --> 00:06:18.360 but the way it’s done is actually pretty clever. 00:06:18.960 --> 00:06:23.176 Here, let’s all settle down as a wholesome  family and watch 00:06:23.176 --> 00:06:25.664 Goodfellas together with the Guardian turned on. 00:06:27.033 --> 00:06:31.350 Profanity is definitely the only objectionable part of that movie, right? 00:06:31.806 --> 00:06:33.802 [ambient road noise] 00:06:34.740 --> 00:06:39.914 So far it looks like a typical movie-going experience, but watch what happens here. 00:06:40.751 --> 00:06:43.763 [clunky thud, ambient noise] 00:06:43.763 --> 00:06:46.851 [audio cuts out] 00:06:46.851 --> 00:06:48.303 [Jimmy - 00:06:48.303 --> 00:06:49.574 What's up? 00:06:49.574 --> 00:06:50.994 Did I hear something? 00:06:50.994 --> 00:06:52.200 What the F - ] [audio cuts again] 00:06:52.200 --> 00:06:54.267 Not only was the audio muted, 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. 00:07:01.364 --> 00:07:08.003 And that captioning was altered to remove the offensive word, in this case "fudge." 00:07:08.003 --> 00:07:12.375 But it didn’t simply remove the word, it also took out the the. 00:07:12.375 --> 00:07:14.808 “What the fudge is that” became, simply, 00:07:16.260 --> 00:07:20.654 This sort of word swap or rephrasing is done whenever necessary. 00:07:20.654 --> 00:07:24.850 And it’s sometimes pretty good at keeping the  context intact. 00:07:24.850 --> 00:07:27.031 Like, for instance in this scene. 00:07:27.031 --> 00:07:30.097 [ How could I go back to school after that and pledge allegiance to the flag and - ] 00:07:30.097 --> 00:07:33.361 [audio cut] 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:34.856 [sound returns] 00:07:34.856 --> 00:07:40.342 Good government “bull excrement” was replaced  with good government "baloney." 00:07:40.342 --> 00:07:44.248 [ For us, to live any other way was nuts. T - ] 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”. 00:07:53.160 --> 00:07:56.760 Cruddy would have been a better fit but still, not bad. 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. 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. 00:08:10.936 --> 00:08:14.136 Entire sentences are often displayed at once, 00:08:14.136 --> 00:08:18.826 in fact a call and response between two characters is sometimes on screen. 00:08:18.826 --> 00:08:22.876 The text will stay there until the next spurt of data is received 00:08:22.876 --> 00:08:27.556 which either contains more text and formatting or says to clear it. 00:08:27.556 --> 00:08:32.263 So, if a chunk of captioning data contains a bad word or phrase, 00:08:32.263 --> 00:08:37.297 the TV Guardian knows it will be spoken at some point the text is displayed, 00:08:37.297 --> 00:08:39.463 but it doesn’t know exactly when. 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. 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 - ] 00:08:48.408 --> 00:08:52.211 [audio cut] 00:08:52.211 --> 00:08:54.702 [It's not even fair, no?] 00:08:55.800 --> 00:09:01.056 As removing an entire sentence or more could  very easily cause you to lose the plot,   00:09:01.056 --> 00:09:06.343 it has little choice but to display the  text with the objectionable parts altered. 00:09:06.343 --> 00:09:08.544 Now that is an optional feature. 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. 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” — 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 00:09:30.224 --> 00:09:35.388 — and that will simply have it mute the audio and leave you wondering what was said. 00:09:35.388 --> 00:09:38.095 I don’t know why you’d want that but you can do it! 00:09:38.095 --> 00:09:43.848 You can also have it leave captions on continuously,  leaving nice and friendly phrases unaltered but, 00:09:43.848 --> 00:09:47.210 whenever someone uses a mouth which makes  you wonder if they kiss their mother with it, 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. 00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:55.500 You can also choose how strict you want the filtering to be.   00:09:56.040 --> 00:10:01.980 If phrases like “My god” bother you, you’ll want the extra strict enforcement turned on. 00:10:01.980 --> 00:10:04.578 But if you’re just a little bit more lenient, 00:10:04.578 --> 00:10:09.323 you can choose the mild setting which lets such religious-adjacent phrases through, 00:10:09.323 --> 00:10:13.110 in addition to less-objectionable potty-mouth words. 00:10:13.110 --> 00:10:16.098 Now these are printed in the manual. 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 00:10:25.259 --> 00:10:27.360 "H E Double Hockey Sticks." 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, 00:10:34.439 --> 00:10:36.990 you can also turn off the filtering altogether. 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:41.997 Now, it’s probably obvious but this method has a few key weaknesses. 00:10:41.997 --> 00:10:47.366 We’ve already discussed how it has to mute entire sentences or more but, to reiterate, 00:10:47.366 --> 00:10:50.571 it has to mute entire sentences or more. 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… 00:10:57.943 --> 00:11:01.400 really weird or even just bad. 00:11:01.400 --> 00:11:04.453 Here’s a list of all the examples that I’ve found. 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. 00:11:10.292 --> 00:11:14.476 We already established that "excrement" turns into crud, 00:11:14.476 --> 00:11:18.928 but if it’s phrased as “oh, shirt” then it becomes “oh, man.” 00:11:18.928 --> 00:11:20.307 Pretty good. 00:11:20.307 --> 00:11:27.035 The phrase that rhymes with "missed off" gets changed to teed off (or just teed). 00:11:27.035 --> 00:11:29.073 Prick becomes jerk. 00:11:29.073 --> 00:11:32.271 Bastard also turns into jerk. 00:11:32.271 --> 00:11:36.323 Uh… "rocksucker" was also turned into jerk. 00:11:36.323 --> 00:11:38.399 Really there’s a lotta jerks. 00:11:38.399 --> 00:11:42.624 But slut, ah well that turned into flirt. 00:11:42.624 --> 00:11:46.328 It’s fine with moron. That’s cool with the guardian. 00:11:46.328 --> 00:11:51.794 The n word simply becomes ellipses which… yeah that’s probably for the best. 00:11:51.794 --> 00:11:56.139 A word now commonly considered a slur became simply “gay” 00:11:56.139 --> 00:11:59.678 so the caption “he’s treating me like a gay” popped up here. 00:11:59.678 --> 00:12:00.886 Interesting. 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 00:12:08.287 --> 00:12:10.819 or be a name as happened here. 00:12:10.819 --> 00:12:14.762 Oh, and the exclamation "My God" becomes Man, which… 00:12:14.762 --> 00:12:15.960 I guess that’s fine. 00:12:16.680 --> 00:12:19.344 But then there’s the F-bomb. 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. 00:12:26.041 --> 00:12:27.807 Here’s a decent example. 00:12:27.807 --> 00:12:31.420 "Maybe it’s me, I’m a little forked up." turns into 00:12:31.420 --> 00:12:34.168 "Maybe it’s me, I’m a little 'messed' up." 00:12:34.168 --> 00:12:36.421 Great work! That worked fine. 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?" 00:12:42.217 --> 00:12:45.858 But, uh, if it’s ever phrased as a verb, 00:12:45.858 --> 00:12:49.300 the guardian likes to change it to "wow." 00:12:49.300 --> 00:12:53.128 Like, you'll wow everything up. Or, go wow yourself. 00:12:53.128 --> 00:12:55.998 I mean, OK. 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. 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, 00:13:11.023 --> 00:13:14.886 "go go away your mother" doesn’t really mean anything intelligible. 00:13:14.886 --> 00:13:17.110 That’s a total fail. 00:13:17.110 --> 00:13:21.780 Oh and, F... trucker is another word that becomes jerk. 00:13:22.380 --> 00:13:25.380 But even if it made perfect decisions all the time,   00:13:25.380 --> 00:13:30.957 it first relies on closed captioning to be A) there in the first place 00:13:30.957 --> 00:13:34.297 B) accurate and not itself censored and 00:13:34.297 --> 00:13:38.592 C) properly timed and in sync with the speech. 00:13:38.592 --> 00:13:42.971 By the time this thing was released most everything had closed captions in it, 00:13:42.971 --> 00:13:47.189 but with the rise of the DVD, some studios went rogue. 00:13:47.189 --> 00:13:50.640 And in fact, the manual calls out Universal for doing this. 00:13:51.240 --> 00:13:55.991 See, DVD players are capable of injecting their own line 21 captioning data 00:13:55.991 --> 00:14:00.168 so analog TVs hooked up to them can decode it on their own. 00:14:00.168 --> 00:14:02.478 Here’s an example with The Birdcage, 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 00:14:08.059 --> 00:14:10.504 if only it didn’t have cuss words. 00:14:11.580 --> 00:14:16.624 But of course, DVD players could also display closed captions themselves. 00:14:16.624 --> 00:14:21.872 And far more capably, offering captions in multiple languages,  commentary tracks, 00:14:21.872 --> 00:14:26.054 and in any style, font, or color the publisher desired. 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, 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:38.287 at least circa 2000. 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. 00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:49.980 Another issue comes from captions which don’t exactly match the dialog.   00:14:49.980 --> 00:14:54.164 This is actually quite common, usually when dialog is fast-paced. 00:14:54.164 --> 00:14:57.073 [ It was there that I knew that I belonged. 00:14:57.073 --> 00:15:01.523 To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood that was full of nobodies. 00:15:01.523 --> 00:15:03.083 They weren't like anybody else. 00:15:03.083 --> 00:15:04.836 I mean, they did whatever they wanted. 00:15:04.836 --> 00:15:08.771 They double parked in front of a hydrant and nobody ever gave them a ticket. 00:15:08.771 --> 00:15:12.598 In the summer, when they played cards all night, nobody ever called the cops.] 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 00:15:20.382 --> 00:15:22.681 “my father was always ticked off,” 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. 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. 00:15:37.950 --> 00:15:42.701 So the audio is unmuted and the last one is… missed. 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] 00:15:47.615 --> 00:15:49.934 Won’t somebody think of the children? 00:15:49.934 --> 00:15:54.460 Then of course, what if whoever wrote the captions  was a prude who censored them? 00:15:54.460 --> 00:15:58.646 Instead of actually writing out H E Double Hockey Sticks they could have written 00:15:58.646 --> 00:16:00.862 "H asterisk asterisk asteroid." 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, 00:16:10.256 --> 00:16:14.707 they’re not seeing the movie they chose to see if the captions are censored. 00:16:14.707 --> 00:16:17.523 So in the grand scheme that should be rare. 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. 00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:26.983 Lastly, there’s caption timing. 00:16:26.983 --> 00:16:31.588 Live events rely on stenographers furiously stenographering what’s spoken 00:16:31.588 --> 00:16:34.862 and that leads to a substantial delay in the captions. 00:16:34.862 --> 00:16:38.760 So better hope those sportscasters aren’t potty mouths. 00:16:38.760 --> 00:16:42.308 Scripted content is generally better, but it’s not perfect. 00:16:42.308 --> 00:16:46.498 The Guardian let quite a few things slip through in Goodfellas. 00:16:46.498 --> 00:16:49.843 To be fair, they don’t claim perfection on the box. 00:16:49.843 --> 00:16:54.103 Another somewhat odd choice was an inability to censor any RF source. 00:16:54.103 --> 00:16:58.127 There is a coaxial input but this is just a pass-through, 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.” 00:17:05.940 --> 00:17:10.332 Yes, it has a built-in RF modulator for outputting to older TVs, 00:17:10.332 --> 00:17:14.758 but the censoring function only works on the composite input. 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, 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.   00:17:27.660 --> 00:17:32.340 I imagine this was mainly a cost-cutting measure but it still seems silly. 00:17:32.340 --> 00:17:35.213 Oh, and since there’s only one input… 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. 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. 00:17:48.181 --> 00:17:52.100 But if you’re not so lucky, you’ll need some sort of video switcher. 00:17:52.100 --> 00:17:54.488 The manual even says as much. 00:17:54.488 --> 00:17:58.885 The limitations we just went over are all technical ones, though. 00:17:58.885 --> 00:18:02.618 There’s also a pretty glaring conceptual hurdle. 00:18:02.618 --> 00:18:06.287 I chose Goodfellas and The Birdcage to demonstrate this 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. 00:18:15.293 --> 00:18:16.527 Just a hunch. 00:18:17.060 --> 00:18:22.186 The TV Guardian can’t do anything about the content or what’s on the screen; 00:18:22.186 --> 00:18:27.852 it can only ever be a pretty-good but not perfect profanity  filter. 00:18:27.852 --> 00:18:31.725 So I’m somewhat perplexed by the perceived value here. 00:18:31.725 --> 00:18:36.480 You’re still gonna need to screen for  whatever you might not want your kids… seeing! 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. 00:18:43.405 --> 00:18:47.686 But it’s really only that middle-ground that this can do anything for. 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,   00:18:55.318 --> 00:18:56.944 well you better not let them leave the house. 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. 00:19:05.640 --> 00:19:09.420 Still, though, as much as I think  this is silly and not at all for me,  00:19:09.902 --> 00:19:13.346 I will tip my hat to it for being pretty clever. 00:19:13.346 --> 00:19:16.616 And, if you think there’s some merit in this idea, 00:19:16.616 --> 00:19:19.924 or maybe you know someone in your life who would  have loved one of these, 00:19:19.924 --> 00:19:21.775 well I have good news! 00:19:22.140 --> 00:19:27.900 This company still exists, and they make HDMI  versions now so you can guard your Netflix. 00:19:29.160 --> 00:19:31.073 Except, not actually. 00:19:31.909 --> 00:19:34.680 Yeah, they’re  still relying on line 21 captions. 00:19:35.400 --> 00:19:39.963 Probably because HDMI doesn’t actually carry captioning data. 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,   00:19:47.940 --> 00:19:50.775 so the HDMI video feed is… 00:19:50.775 --> 00:19:54.406 I guess just a passthrough that it draws captions on top of? 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:59.040 I dunno, I’d investigate further but this is No Effort November. 00:19:59.580 --> 00:20:02.197 Before I go, I want to do two more things. 00:20:02.197 --> 00:20:07.213 First, I want to thank my long-time patron Colin for sending this thing to me. 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. 00:20:13.604 --> 00:20:15.259 And second… 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. 00:20:20.751 --> 00:20:26.694 In my video on closed captioning, I said I’d be making a video on Teletext. 00:20:26.694 --> 00:20:29.070 And I said I'd do that “Soon” 00:20:30.313 --> 00:20:32.744 That was almost four years ago. 00:20:33.074 --> 00:20:33.990 So what happened? 00:20:34.620 --> 00:20:39.195 Well, I don’t think I’m the right person to tell that story. 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. 00:20:45.604 --> 00:20:49.521 For those that don’t know, which is mainly people outside of Europe, 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. 00:20:59.911 --> 00:21:05.291 And I cannot stress the way way wayyyyyy more capable part enough. 00:21:05.291 --> 00:21:07.246 It wasn’t just captions. 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. 00:21:16.980 --> 00:21:22.174 For whatever reason, probably the lack  of a nationalized television broadcaster,   00:21:22.174 --> 00:21:24.581 that never got any traction here. 00:21:24.581 --> 00:21:29.436 Americans just don’t know what teletext is or was. 00:21:29.436 --> 00:21:33.300 We never had it aside from small-scale tests here and there. 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 - 00:21:41.708 --> 00:21:45.117 see our standard was designed with that in mind. 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. 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, 00:21:59.790 --> 00:22:02.940 and archives are being built and expanded as we speak. 00:22:03.660 --> 00:22:08.733 That’s really interesting to me, but without a personal… 00:22:08.733 --> 00:22:13.200 connection to it, I just won’t give the story justice. 00:22:13.200 --> 00:22:15.931 I’ll leave that for someone else to tackle. 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. 00:22:21.493 --> 00:22:24.191 But yeah, a teletext video… 00:22:24.540 --> 00:22:26.784 isn’t gonna happen on this channel. 00:22:26.784 --> 00:22:30.014 I bet there are some pretty cool videos on YouTube right now, though - 00:22:30.014 --> 00:22:31.772 ohhh goodness. 00:22:31.772 --> 00:22:33.691 No. Nooo… 00:22:34.224 --> 00:22:37.408 Why are these popping up? They have nothing to do… 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, 00:22:43.708 --> 00:22:47.318 you go right ahead - I’ll even be on the lookout for ‘em. 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. 00:22:52.155 --> 00:22:53.316 Ok bye. 00:22:54.204 --> 00:22:56.847 ♫ profanely smooth jazz ♫ 00:22:58.039 --> 00:23:01.140 Are you looking for a technological solution to your fear of 00:23:02.460 --> 00:23:03.307 nope. 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] 00:23:08.223 --> 00:23:10.159 oh god I didn't take a breath at the right time 00:23:10.159 --> 00:23:13.038 Of course there is a custom circuit breaker... circuit board. 00:23:13.038 --> 00:23:14.936 It's not a circuit breaker! 00:23:14.936 --> 00:23:19.140 Captioning data is sent in spurts which encode all the text tood 00:23:20.940 --> 00:23:22.020 ugh! 00:23:22.020 --> 00:23:27.187 Captioning data is sent in spurts which encode all the text to be displayed on - 00:23:27.187 --> 00:23:28.077 [laughs] 00:23:28.077 --> 00:23:29.444 That's a mouthful! 00:23:29.444 --> 00:23:31.847 Which encode all the text to be displayed! 00:23:31.847 --> 00:23:34.596 ...which encode all the text to be displayed on 00:23:34.596 --> 00:23:36.985 I made it! But I didn't think I did! 00:23:36.985 --> 00:23:39.387 ...which encode all the text to bees 00:23:39.387 --> 00:23:40.501 My god! 00:23:40.501 --> 00:23:43.764 All the text to be. Text to be. 00:23:43.764 --> 00:23:46.218 That's... all the text to be 00:23:46.218 --> 00:23:47.447 Haha, wow! 00:23:47.777 --> 00:23:49.443 As much as... 00:23:49.443 --> 00:23:51.383 [holding in laughter] 00:23:51.383 --> 00:23:52.724 Oh god. 00:23:52.724 --> 00:23:54.833 This is like Dietz Nuts all over again. 00:23:55.746 --> 00:23:58.119 It's not even supposed to be funny! 00:23:58.119 --> 00:24:03.221 It first relies on closed captioning to A) be there in the first place, B) 00:24:03.830 --> 00:24:07.363 [questioning, contemplative silence] 00:24:07.743 --> 00:24:09.590 Oh, yeah that's correct. 00:24:10.402 --> 00:24:10.902 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 00:24:10.902 --> 00:24:11.402 ______________ _______ __ ____ ____ 00:24:11.402 --> 00:24:11.902 ______________ __ __ 00:24:11.902 --> 00:24:13.822 SO, WHAT'D YA THINK? 00:24:13.822 --> 00:24:14.322 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 00:24:14.322 --> 00:24:14.822 ______________ __ __ 00:24:14.822 --> 00:24:15.322 ______________ __ __ ________ __ 00:24:15.322 --> 00:24:17.575 PRETTY COOL VIDEO, HUH? 00:24:17.575 --> 00:24:18.075 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 00:24:18.075 --> 00:24:18.575 ______________ __ __ 00:24:18.575 --> 00:24:19.075 ______________ __ __ ________ __ 00:24:19.075 --> 00:24:19.575 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 00:24:19.575 --> 00:24:20.075 ______________ __ __ 00:24:20.075 --> 00:24:20.575 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 00:24:20.575 --> 00:24:23.716 THIS GAG VIOLATES THE SPIRIT OF NO EFFORT NOVEMBER 00:24:23.716 --> 00:24:24.216 ______________ __ __ ____ __ __ 00:24:24.216 --> 00:24:24.716 ______________ __ _____ __ __ 00:24:24.716 --> 00:24:25.216 ______________ __ __ 00:24:25.216 --> 00:24:28.716 FOR SHAME