I’m not asking for advice or instructions on how to do this. I’m just curious about how many people have actually used their V-chip for its intended purpose, i.e. blocking certain categories of programming from their TVs.
I don’t know anyone personally who has done this.
Not never, no how.
I honestly forgot such a thing even existed until I saw the title of this thread so, no, I haven’t. Then again, I often forget I have a TV, so…
I leave mine on to block anything at TV-14 or above, mostly out of curiosity, and also, because I don’t have cable, it’s a good way to identify trashy shows that are likely too stupid to watch. One annoyance is that occasionally they will have something perfectly innocuous, like a golf match, set at TV-14 – I’m not sure if this is a network or local problem. Interestingly, the only daytime over-the-air program that I’ve seen flagged as TV-MA is the recent Ray Charles movie starring Jamie Fox.
I think we need to lobby Congress for a C-chip; one that blocks all commercials, including anything cleverly embedded in the main show.
V-chip: Don’t have kids, don’t need it, never used it.
No kids. I don’t even know if my TV has a V-chip.
When did you buy it?
This past year. So I guess it probably does. I don’t even know how I’d go about implementing it.
Can we have it also somehow block the not-clever sweeping ads that pop up on our TV screens during the show, often having extra-loud sound effects?
What we really need is something that will filter out political rhetoric.
We can call it the B-chip.
Do you do this for your kids or for yourself?
Yup, I do. I recently had a mysterious 12.99 cent movie charged to my GCI account. I asked the girl “12.99??? I thought most movies were about 4-7 bucks on PPV, and I haven’t ordered any lately”.
Poor thing hemmed and hawed and it finally dawned on me what KIND of movie costs 12.99. Movies with “naughty” in the title that’s what! I got a DVR for my son’s room when he came up here for the semester. He’s 16. Uh huh.
So, I had GCI block all of the “naughty” PPV channels. Then I went in and blocked the R offerings on cable. Heh. The little sneak.
The responses are pretty close to the national average - one study showed 15% usage, and another 8%. Link. I never have, though I actually know how to get to it. My kids were old enough for me not to need it.
No kids, just curious to see how well the system works.
Hmm… I just realized that my tv is more than 10 years old - I bought it in December of 2006. (In the Canadian market.)
Nope, don’t use it here. My 14 year old knows that anything ordered shows up on our bill, and we only have the one TV in the living room, so he’s unlikely to watch anything terrible knowing Mom can (and does) walk through at random, unannounced moments. He’s not home alone often enough for me to worry about that - sure, he might be watching something racy, but so what, really? I was browsing my dad’s Playboys by the time I was his age. We only have basic cable, so there’s nothing hard-core available. He’ll have to find that on the internet like God intended.
But I’d use a “C-chip” just as soon as someone invents it. I don’t even mind regular commercials all that much, but those banner ads which are starting to take up half the screen, with sound and movement and everything. Arrgh! I knew the little station symbol in the corner was a slippery slope, I just *knew *it! Before long there will be split screen offerings with constant ad content streaming during the entire show, wait and see.
That’s less than a year old. Did you mean 1996?
Either that or he’s built a really cool time machine.
I wonder if there is a DeLorean in his driveway…
Quiet, you fool! Don’t give them ideas! :eek: