[starcitysecrets]

I wouldn't necessarily use this feature but I've had something similar in my mind for a while and I thought it could be useful to those who have families and small children.

Basically it would mean filtering your movie collection based on data from your collection and then restricting the viewability during certain times in the day OR certain times of the year.

Here's how it would work.

Say you have a 10 year old child, and whilst you were at work you didn't particularly want them to be watching adult rated films like PG-13, R, NC-17 (12, 15 & 18 if you're from the UK) then during a specified time of the day (say 6am-8pm) any film that has a rating above PG-13 or 12 is hidden from the movie library, leaving only general audiences films (G, PG, U) or possibly leave them visible but have them PIN number protected

this could be refined based on what age your children are and what time of day you are away.

also, another use of this could be that during certain times of the year, certain movies are hidden. I can only think of one use for this so far being Christmas films. So you could have it that Christmas films appear in your library around the end of November, so that the rest of the year, your Christmas films aren't filling up your movie library unnecessarily.

Not sure if XBMC would be able to do this but just a suggestion to make it a little more family friendly

[derbycity]

Yeah that's a great Idea i really can use something like that

[htpc guy]

That would be really cool. Its been suggested before but I don't think it is something that would be easy to implement. Maybe we can all hope that this feature comes with the rebuilt library in the future versions (maybe Eaden).

[MarkTaunton]

Why not just set up windows user accounts and set a password so that they cannot log in?

The thing that I find annoying about XBMC in that respects is when you set up a user account, you cannot set up a password for those accounts.

That should be what you are trying to do, rather than wanting to go all around the houses.

E.G I have Master User, all films including blue ones (not smurfs)
E.G I have family movies, all films suitable for family entertainment
E.G I have XXX suitable for those old enough

All what you would need is for XBMC to have password access on an account, rather than having to worry about certain movies playing at a certain time.

[Mindzai]

I think the built-in accounts system would be better for this. It wouldn't take much for example to disconnect the computer from the internet and adjust the clock in order to access adult movies. Of course this is no good if the accounts cannot be password protected...

[starcitysecrets]

i was really talking more of a set top box situation where you have a nettop machine like an ION nettop running XBMC live.

im not sure a 10 year old would be able to figure out how to change the time through xbmc live, come to think of it, I can't remember how to do it myself. and again, these are all parameters that could be taken into account to avoid tampering with the system.

and its all well and good using the accounts but it is a bit of a hassle setting them all up and then having to log out and log in just to restrict/access content. that just seems like a long winded way of acheiving something that could be switched on or off in the settings menu (apart from it would need the hours of coding into xbmc)

this doesnt really apply to a situation outside of xbmc live because you're probably better off searching the internet or browsing folders to look for porn or R/NC-17 movies if you're using a PC to access xbmc, whereas a dedicated machine running xbmc live is limited to just xbmc.

[Mnuu]

PIN Protection would probably be the best solution. Time based would work (if your child can access a linux console and reset the time then there is already no way you can stop them viewing whatever content they want), but I think its just an inferior method of content protection (relies on you being in the room!) but that comes down to opinion.

[starcitysecrets]

i agree, I'm not a parent myself but supervision is obviously the best method overall. I'm still not convinced that a child would be able to access the console to reset the time. I'd be surprised to find someone i know below 15 who knows what a linux console is.

[technojunkie]

This is doable without modification to xbmc, but it's still not easy. If you're staying set-top box centric, you can configure to use MySQL as the DB. Within MySQL queries can be created/run against the main DB to create a sub-db that you can point your XBMC box at.

I haven't started yet but I intend to do just this to filter movie ratings that my kids get on their laptop.

To do a time based filter might require some cron scripting to run different scripts or queries against the database at the desired times.

[wiggy]

Hi there
just an idea, might have already been put forward

Idea: an app / script that let's me hide selected films by data eg Christmas films only popping up during December?

Hopefully someone has achieved this already?

Thanks

[vanMiez]

Yeah...
... and not just only for movies, but also music albums.

think it could easily be implemented by filtering by genre if your files are tagged properly and you're tagging them all with e.g. "XMas "
Could also be a starting point for movies.

cheers
vanMiez