Something I Love...Clearplay
I started doing this 30 day challenge just over 2 weeks ago. When I first read the list of challenges, I KNEW I was going to blog about how much I love my Clearplay DVD player. It's an amazing device that allows you to download filters for loads of movies and an increasing number of TV shows. We're making our way through the episodes of Chuck right now. The filtering system edits out most of the stuff I wouldn't want my kids to see--though for some reason I couldn't get it to edit out Captain Awesome when he dressed up as Adam for Halloween, and it took some experimenting before I figured out what mix of settings would eliminate Sarah in her underwear.
For most of the movies we want to watch, it simply edits out the swearing. We could also program it to edit out just about anything we might have a problem with: violence and/or gore, sex and/or nudity, disrespectful talking, racial slurs, even mushiness. I've never used the mushiness setting, but one of these days I'm going to turn it on and figure out what the heck that's all about. There are 12 filtering categories in all, and for each category you can set "No Filtering; Least Filtering; Medium Filtering; or Most Filtering."
If they are skipping sound, the image keeps going, kind of like on TV-edited shows. If they skip a sight, it's a split second jump--in many cases you don't even notice it, but sometimes you can. One thing they strive to do is maintain the quality of the show and the storyline, and if something is important to the storyline, they don't filter it. I haven't had a problem with that.
They are constantly adding more movies and television shows to their data base, and they send you periodic updates. You take the flashdrive out of the DVD player, put it in the computer and push one little button and you've got their entire data base updated. It takes about 10 seconds, if that.
We've had to learn the hard way that not all content can be edited out of movies. If a movie is geared to teach a message you find offensive, Clearplay can't do a thing about it. It's also probably not going to edit out the important conversation two strangers have while lying in bed after meeting in a bar and...You get the picture.
The worst movie we ever watched on Clearplay was Grease. If I remember right, two of my favorite songs were completely edited out. Even with all settings up to maximum, we couldn't edit out the poor messages in that movie.
One of the best shows we've watched on Clearplay was the latest Star Trek movie. We kept most of the filtering off, but had language and violence on "least." I only noticed one spot where they edited violence, but there was a constant stream of swearing edited. We didn't miss it at all.
I hope I can talk Caleb into one!
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