SageTV v7 PARENTAL CONTROLS needs an update, already?

[dcanova]

There are some TV shows on cable television that are rated TV-MA, for “adult humor, language, etc”, that I have a difficult time enforcing parental controls for. As you know, when BMT imports the TV show descriptions, it also imports the TV show or movie ratings as well, and it does a great job tagging the appropriate rating to each TV show or movie I record or have in my collection.

THE PROBLEM: There isn’t a check box for TV-MA under Parental Controls, so when anyone attempts to play a TV show that is rated TV-MA, it PLAYS. There is no prompt for a Parental Code, even though I have checked the check-box for TV-M.

I did a little research and found the following:
“According to the “TV Parental Guidelines” system, a TV-MA rating means the program may be unsuitable for those below 17. This rating was originally TV-M in early 1997 but was changed because of a trademark dispute and to remove confusion with the ESRB's "M for Mature" rating for video games.”

So, in other words, the TV-M rating was discontinued back in 1997 and replaced with TV-MA rating.

This means the Parental Controls TV ratings listed in SageTV Parental Controls panel needs to be updated to reflect the "TV Parental Guidlines" that were changed over 13 years ago. (Don't feel bad, I did not know about this change either, until today.)

So obviously, the reason for posting this thread is that there is no check box for TV-MA, just TV-M, -- which was discontinued back in 1997. (I do not know if you want to keep TV-M on the list just in case some users have older TV shows that still have that rating.)

As a parent of a family who owns 3 SageTV extenders in our home, adding TV-MA to the Parental Controls is an important feature that I hope you can fix “VERY SOON”.

Since the TV-MA rating has been in place since 1997, (or since the TV-M rating was discontinued in 1997), --- either way you look at it, --- I find it surprising (or maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised) that I am the first parent to report this shortcoming to you or that I am the first parent to request that the TV-MA rating be included in the SageTV Parental Controls.
– Thank you for your help.

[Comitizer]

You should probably file a bug for this. I'm not sure that the developers always read the forums.

[dcanova]

Great idea! I just submitted this as a "bug" at the appropriate link too. Let's see what happens.

Thanks

[dcanova]

To help avoid some potential confusion, here is some additional background information that some parents or other SageTV users might find helpful.

The "original" voluntary TV Parental Guidlines (as mandated by the U. S. Congress) were published by NAB, NCTA and MPAA and submitted to the FCC on January 17, 1997, which included the TV rating of TV-M.

Among other things, it stated:

____________________

TV-M - Mature Audience Only
This program is specially designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17. This program may contain mature themes, profane language, graphic violence and explicit sexual content.

____________________

Later that same year, on September 10, 1997, (only 8 months later) the NAB, NCTA and MPAA submitted "revised" TV Parental Guidlines to the FCC.

Among other things, it stated that refinements were being made to the original TV Parental Guidlines, which included the "revised" TV rating code for "Mature Audience Only" as:

____________________

TV-MA - Mature Audience Only
This program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17. This program contains one or more of the following: graphic violence (V), explicit sexual activity (S), or crude indecent language (L).

These refinements maintain the broad six-category structure of the system of ratings we previously submitted to the Commission and add symbols indicating the particular content of each program, as appropriate. Together, the category and program-specific content indicators will provide parents with information that will help them make informed decisions about what their children should watch on television.
_____________________

To reference to the complete document, please refer to:
http://www.fcc.gov/vchip/revprop.html

_____________________


So, depending on which document you are referencing will depend on what TV rating code for "Mature Audience Only" you will see.

Obviously, the Sage-TV product development team had the right intentions as they referred to the "original" TV Parental Guidelines dated January 17, 1997, when setting up the Sage TV Parental Control system, rather than the "revised" TV Parental Guidelines dated September 10, 1997. (a very understandable mistake)

I was certainly not aware that there were "two versions" of the TV Parental Guidelines either, until I did this additional research myself last night. So this has turned out to be "educational", to say the least.

Therefore, the goal of this thread is to:

1. Inform other SageTV users and parents of this discrepancy.

2. To ask SageTV to "re-align" the SageTV Parental Controls so that they reflect the "revised" or latest revision of the TV Parental Control Guidelines dated September 10, 1997, rather than the "original" version.

3. An attempt to solicit feedback and/or support from other parents or other SageTV users as well.

I hope this "clarification" was helpful (and educational).

-- Thanks again.


EDIT: Just for giggles, did you also notice the contradiction when reading the second sentence I wrote above? (The words "voluntary" and "mandated" are in the same sentence). (That could lead to a whole other discussion, ..... but we won't go there today). "smiles"

[matt91]

This is just the sort of thing, IMHO, that belongs on the new wiki (http://sagetv.wikispaces.com/). Not the discussion of M vs MA, but how to incorporate parental ratings into your viewing (e.g., what options does one need to select, what customizations does one need to use, etc).

[GKusnick]

Seems to me the most important consideration is that Sage's interpretation be consistent with the actual ratings found in the EPG data provided by Zap2It. That data, as far as I can tell, uses TVM rather than TV-MA. You could argue that Zap2It is doing it wrong according to the standard, but that's an argument you should have with Zap2It, not Sage. Given the data they're getting, Sage handles it right.

So the real practical issue here seems to be that BMT is inconsistent with both Sage and Zap2It in this respect, and that's where your issue originates.

(Also, I have to ask: what's up with all the italics, bold, bold italics, and multiple text colors? All that's missing is Comic Sans.)

[Narflex]

Thanks Greg....you beat me to the answer.

He's correct that our EPG data only ever uses TVM as a rating for TV programming and never uses TV-MA; which is why only TVM shows up under parental controls. I'll contact the BMT developer about this so he can just have his code do a replacement on that and also likely fix existing ones that have been tagged as TV-MA instead of TVM.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

So the real practical issue here seems to be that BMT is inconsistent with both Sage and Zap2It in this respect, and that's where your issue originates.

I guess technically, it's imdb, tvdb, themoviedb, dvdprofiler, etc, that is inconsistent with SageTV. Since BMT simply passes data along, it doesn't attempt to validate that the the rating in tvdb, etc, is actually valid, in the sense that sagetv can consume it.

[Skirge01]

Wow... it's just like at work. Point the finger someplace else. I do understand the views everyone has and--really--everyone is correct. But, the real question is how do we fix it? Here's how I see it...

1. Get IMDB, TVDB, THEMOVIEDB, DVDPROFILER et al to change their ratings.
2. Get Zap2It to change its ratings.
3. Get BMT to change the data it gets from #1 to SageTV's and Zap2It's logic.
4. Get SageTV to add commonly accepted, alternate ratings.

I have my doubts about option #1 being feasible. #2 could very well fall into the same category. That leaves us with #3 and #4. I'm assuming a show can't have more than one rating, so simply "adding" another, similar one isn't going to work.

TBH, I don't know which one is the right answer between 3 and 4, but I hope we can agree that those are the only viable options.

[stuckless]

I am looking at fixing this withing bmt. Unfortunately, there's only one of me... and way too may things going on. While this seems like a really simply trivial thing to fix, there are other factors at play, which I'm currently looking at as well. If bmt fixes this issue, then the expectation is that bmt will go back a fix all the other incorrect files as well, so that just adds to the time to get this out.

My point above, was simply stating a fact, and not pointing a finger. BMT grabs data, and then it sets that data into the media file. It doesn't care what it is, or even if it's correct.

In meantime, if you can have bmt NOT affect the existing metadata of sage recordings, by checking the option Configure -> Phoenix -> Metadata/Fanart options -> Preserve Original Metadata for Recordings (this is enabled by default).

I'm unsure at this point when I can have a fix for this, but i'm optimistically shooting for later in the weekend.

[dcanova]

Great feedback!

By the way, I visited Zap2It's website and I could not find any reference to TV Parental Guidelines at all.

Getting back to the original concern, if you re-read the original posting, the problem stems from the fact that the Cable TV programmers ARE CHOOSING TO COMPLY WITH the 'REVISED" (or latest revision) of the TV Parent Guidelines drafted by the TV and Movie industry by "coding" their TV programs with the TV-MA "code" rather than the TV-M "code".

And besides, it would be self-defeating for Sage-TV to continue to advertise that it offers "Parental Controls" and not have it work as intended.

Politics aside, for the Parental Controls feature to function properly, the system has to acknowledge that the TV-MA rating exists and that it recognizes the TV-MA code.

And to the person who suggested that this thread ought to be posted under "customizations"; --- NO, --- we are not talking about customizing a new feature, but trying to get an existing system that is already in place to work correctly with an already established "STANDARD" that the TV and Cable TV industry is choosing to comply with. There is no need for anyone else to customize any existing plug-ins or create any new plug-ins.

Since the Parental Control Panel is now imbedded into the SageTV Version 7 software / firmware applications, it simply falls back to the "programmers" to edit VERSION 7 (as if it was a bug fix) and make the necessary adjustments so it will recognize the "TV-MA" rating that is encoded by the TV and Cable TV programmers, (and allow parents to enable or block it if they choose) --- as this seems to be the most efficient or logical solution to this problem.

And I tip my hat to "stuckless" for offering to jump in and fix it on his end, but I do not believe it is his problem. His BMT program simply grabs the data and passes it along. He should not need to "change" the "interpretation" of the data to overcome a shortfall in SageTV's own program. Now if he wants initiate a temporary "stop-gap" solution until SageTV resolves the issue on it's end, then fine. But it is NOT Stuckless's problem and anything he does towards that end should NOT be a "permanent solution" -- (at least, that is how I see it, and I am not always right).

If the TV and Cable TV industry is choosing to follow the "REVISED" or CORRECT guidelines which the FCC has adopted as the new "standard", then it only makes good business sense for Sage-TV to want to support the same "standard" that the rest of the industry has chosen to comply with as well.

[gplasky]

So doesn't that go back to the source of truth for the ratings being the Zap2It data that Sage is using? Fix it at the source and the rest will follow.

Gerry

[GKusnick]

For the record, I wasn't trying to shift blame, just pointing out that there might be a practical reason why it's the way it is, standards notwithstanding.

That said, there are really two issues here: what should it display in the UI, and how should it store the data internally? Regarding the UI I have no opinion. Regarding storage format, surely it's up to the Sage devs to decide what format suits their needs best, and up to plugin devs to conform their data to the requirements of the database they're writing into.

That's how I see it anyway.

[stuckless]

I should also point out that any fix that I do to bmt will only apply to data that is coming from an external provider. If the EPG data says "TV-MA", then obviously it won't work with the current parental ratings, and bmt won't fix it.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by gplasky

So doesn't that go back to the source of truth for the ratings being the Zap2It data that Sage is using? Fix it at the source and the rest will follow.

Gerry

Couldn't agree more. I just don't know if that will happen. I'd imagine SageTV would have significantly more influence than any of us, but that still doesn't mean they have enough influence.

Originally Posted by dcanova

And besides, it would be self-defeating for Sage-TV to continue to advertise that it offers "Parental Controls" and not have it work as intended.

But, doesn't it? If you use SageTV and the included Zap2It guide data, don't the Parental Controls work as advertised? That was what I got out of your original post, so if I misunderstood, please correct me. It seems to me that the introduction of BMT is what is causing the issue. (Note: Not saying BMT is the cause, stuckless! )

[dcanova]

This is what I get for trying to condense (or for deleting) part of my original posting before actually posting it.

My original “un-posted” comments included the following, which I deleted because I have a tendency to be too “long-winded”. Anyway, now you can read WHAT MOTIVATED me to do some research on this subject and why I started this thread in the first place. The next two paragraphs were originally excluded from the original post, but I will go ahead and share it with you now:

________


I am pleased with the fact that the BMT plug-in is able to download the TV show descriptions and TV Parental codes for my large database so I do not have to enter all of this data manually. One of the Cable TV programs we saved is a show from Showtime called, “The Big C”, about a woman struggling with cancer. And because it has some “adult humor, language, etc”, it has the TV-MA rating. I was impressed that BMT went through and added the TV-MA rating to all of those episodes that I had saved.

However, when I sat down to watch one of the episodes this evening, I was expecting to be prompted to enter my parental control access code, but I was never prompted, and the show started PLAYING. When I went into the details, the TV-MA code was there. When I went to the Parental Control Panel, TV-M was checked. Yet it did not restrict me from watching it.

--- end of original comment ----

Now, getting back to Zap2It question that was previously asked, --- based on what some have suggested, -- Why didn’t Zap2It work? I believe the logical answer is: Zap2It was not part of the equation, as the saved or “imported” files were not coded with any rating at all until BMT was run against the database at a later date which imported and applied the appropriate tag (after the fact), which in this case was TV-MA. On the same note, there were many movies that were not "rated" either that BMT later tagged as rated "R". And those "R" rated movies became officially "restricted" by the SageTV Parental Control feature after BMT had done its job. So why does the "R" rating work OK, but not TV-MA, I asked?

So one thing lead to another as I tried to figure out what I was doing wrong and why the Parental Controls were not working as I originally thought they should. Well, the rest is history, because as you all know after reading my original posting, I learned that I was not doing anything wrong and that SageTV was simply incapable of recognizing the TV-MA code.

The next logical questions were, “Is this a valid problem?” and “Is TV-MA a valid TV Parental Code?” And based on my subsequent research, I was able to adequately document and conclude that the answers to both questions were: Yes, and Yes.

And now you have the whole story and what brought this whole matter to a head.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by dcanova

“Is TV-MA a valid TV Parental Code?”

Nobody's disputing that. But those standards do not dictate how software designers should represent that code in their internal data formats. Sage chooses (for historical reasons having to do with Zap2It compatibility) to represent it as the string "TVM". If other data sources represent it differently, then there should be a translation/validation step performed on that externally sourced data before entering it into the Sage DB. We can argue about whose job it is to perform that translation, but the natural place for it seems (to me) to be the plugin that's pulling down the data.

Again, this is just my opinion, but it seems to me to be more productive to view this as a data-format issue rather than a standards-compliance issue, since (as pointed out by Skirge) the user-level behavior of the base product does comply with the standard.

[dcanova]

I got it! (I think)

I believe I understand what your driving at.

In my words, I believe you are saying: To keep all of our ducks lined up in a row, it is better to "adapt" what Zap2It uses. Perhaps a simple translation statement in a plugin that in effect says:
"TVM = TV-M or TV-MA"

And on the SageTV Parental control side of the aisle, if we want to leave the SageTV Parental Control Panel programming alone, wouldn't there need to be an "opposite translation" somewhere that says, "When TV-M check-box is checked, this would include anything that has the following tags: TVM or TV-M or TV-MA" ---- right?

If this is what you are essentually saying, and it is doable, --- then sure, why not.

[Skirge01]

You're getting there, but I think your understanding is slightly backwards. The "TVM=TV-M or TV-MA" analogy would need to be different. Since BMT is introducing TV-MA to the SageTV party and SageTV doesn't understand it, BMT (as opposed to SageTV) would need to say, "If I see TV-MA on a show/movie I'm importing, I need to change it to TVM, because that's what SageTV understands."

Now, this could cause a number of other problems, which I'm fairly certain is what stuckless was alluding to. For instance, BMT is most likely using TV-MA to determine what rating image to utilize. With this change, code like that would also need to be changed to have TVM be associated with the TV-MA rating. That's just one example, but I'm sure there are many similar instances, which is why stuckless said it's not exactly an easy fix.

[Fuzzy]

At the same time, it may not be all that difficult to make a minor STV change that would have the 'mature' parental control setting check for TVM, TV-M, TV-MA, etc. I understand why sage didn't do this originally, with the scope of them working directly with zap2it. Still, with the potential for other sources, including DVD tv shows, XMLTV sources, etc, it seems that having it accept a variety of comparable ratings as the same owuld make sense. This would allow corse grouping for filtering use, but still allow more specific display of the TV-MA SV, etc in info screens.