LYCOS RETRIEVER 
V-Chip
built 284 days ago
The new V-Chip standard is set to arrive as the U.S. is making the forced march to digital television, said Tim Collings, director of research and development for TriVision, a Canadian company that owns patents for both V-Chip technologies. On March 1, 2007, all televisions and set-top boxes will be required to have digital tuners, and therefore will need the new version of the V-Chip.
Source:
The V-Chip is a device that permits parents to block undesirable TV programs from coming into their homes. It reads an electronic signal sent by most television networks, broadcast and cable. The signal is based on the ratings notices you see displayed at the beginning of each television program.
Source:
An alternate proposal is currently being tested in Canada, where the V-Chip has already gained wide acceptance. In fact, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced on March 14, 1996, its "Policy on Violence in Television Programming," which mandates program-rating code insertion beginning in September 1996. Initial tests were conducted beginning in December 1994 in Edmonton, sponsored by Shaw Cablesystems. Later tests were ... conducted by Rogers Cablesystems in Toronto and Ottawa, and by CFCF Cable in Montreal. Two US television stations, WUTV (Buffalo, NY) and KVOS (Bellingham, WA) have also participated. Original tests employed the T2 data channel, but subsequent tests have utilized the XDS.
Source:
[I]n 1994 the news of the V-Chip had spread to Europe. In June of that year Collings was invited to Europe to demonstrate his invention. This was done at a conference on Violence on TV held in Paris, France. A year later, he was invited to Belgium to ... demonstrate his invention. This is where US Vice President Al Gore got his first look at the technology. At the time, however, the technology was only able to block one program at a time.
Source:
V-Chip technology would allow parents to program their television sets to automatically accept/reject a particular level of violence, sexual content, or strong language as indicated by the XDS Program Rating packet. Typically, an on-screen menu display could be selected on the home receiver, and a personal access number, making violent or otherwise explicit programming accessible to the adults, could be permanently stored in the television receiver. Various levels within each category (violence, sexual content, and language) would then be entered, setting the threshold for blocking or passing an incoming program. Depending upon the level of support offered by the manufacturer of the television, other XDS data packets could be monitored by the television receiver as well. For example, programs could be rejected based upon Program Name or Program Type. Even the XDS Time of Day Packet (Miscellaneous Class) could be used to make sure the television is turned off at a certain time!
Source:
The "V" in the V-Chip is generally thought to stand for violence. Actually it stands for Verboten, the German word for forbidden. It covers anything that is forbidden, like explicit sex. Really the issue on computer networks is sex: keep the violence on television where it belongs. Many children do not have access to computers and some of those kids see more violence on the streets and in the discomfort of their homes than they do on television. The promise of V-Chip technology is to supply a simple answer to complex problems.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
V-Chip