[WhiteRavenCoatL]

My wife and I have really come to rely on Kids-In-Mind.com for judging the suitability of content of movies for our children. The content ratings of Kids-in-Mind are much more detailed and informative IMHO than the MPAA ratings.

It would be AWESOME if we could add a Kids-In-Mind data field, scraper, and filtering for XBMC, or provide support for replacing MPAA ratings with Kids-In-Mind ratings. (I have been manually adding the ratings to the <plot> field, but that is a painstaking process with a sizable library.

Better parental controls are one of the most sorely lacking features on XBMC, filling that void would really take XBMC to the next level.

[butchabay]

Parental control can be set with profiles and smart playlists.
Just a suggestion.

[Ned Scott]

I prefer watching shows/movies with your kids, not putting porn on your HTPC, and the like

None of these sites rate how characters can be sarcastic smart mouth assholes, and that describes almost every character from every Disney live action TV show. I'd rather let my kids watch sex and gore before they watch Disney Channel.

EDITED: This message originally said "better parenting" in the lead sentence, which was a bad choice of words on my part. I do believe some people rely too much on technical solutions for their kids, but I did not mean to imply that this statement was directed at the OP or anyone in this thread specifically. My apologies to anyone I may have offended.

[isamu.dragon]

and better parenting like watching shows/movies with your kids, not putting porn on your HTPC, and the like

None of these sites rate how characters can be sarcastic smart mouth assholes, and that describes almost every character from every Disney live action TV show. I'd rather let my kids watch sex and gore before they watch Disney Channel.

I agree with you.
Along with using Profiles, Place your Child Unfriendly Items in a share that requires a password to access, that way they can't use the file manager to play them without your knowledge.

On a Side note, don't let your kids use the HTPC without you, have them watch normal TV.
At least until you get the settings the way you want.

More importantly, make them play outside. So they don't end up fat assses like I am (220 lbs.)

[ibixat]

wow, just wow. Someone offers up a legitimate suggestion about a scraper and better parental controls that would help adults manage XBMC and make it able to fit their needs better and the responses from a team member is for them to practice "better parenting".

XBMC is capable of being made secure for children, there is no disputing that is the case, however a overall simplified "parental controls" section would be something that would be very welcome. Ratings locks, keyword locks, etc. These are the things that commercial solutions offer, to argue that xbmc doesn't need them is to ignore reality. If you want XBMC to be something other than a geeks toy, there are certain things it will need to embrace. Content control for parents is one of them.

As far as preferring your children watch sex and gore over the disney channel, how about none of the above? I wasn't aware that as a good parent you had to choose between sex and gore or the disney channel. Blocking both is totally within your (good) parenting rights.

[gabbott]

XBMC is capable of being made secure for children, there is no disputing that is the case, however a overall simplified "parental controls" section would be something that would be very welcome. Ratings locks, keyword locks, etc. These are the things that commercial solutions offer, to argue that xbmc doesn't need them is to ignore reality. If you want XBMC to be something other than a geeks toy, there are certain things it will need to embrace. Content control for parents is one of them.

I'm a parent of 4 and the problem with ratings locks and such is it is not foolproof and why would I want a ratings board to determine what is appropriate for my children? The best way IMO is to use a profile that is limited to the sources you find appropriate to the age group and monitoring. So while I'm sure there are some things that could be added to xbmc to make it a little easier to assist with some sort of parental control, at the end of the day it still takes the work of the parent to do the filtering in the backend setup and if one doesn't want to do that work, then the parent needs to monitor the content their children watch if there is a concern of what is accessible. Just my 2 cents.

[ibixat]

I understand they aren't foolproof but being able to say anything rated anything other than G or PG needs a pin to play is basic functionality for consumer level devices these days, Being able to fine tune it through playlists and the like is great, but some simple control that the average parental controls offer would be a welcome addition, dismissing it out of hand and suggesting better parenting as the solution is not helpful. At least not in a XBMC feature suggestion forum, perhaps if this were a parenting forum it would fit.

[isamu.dragon]

I understand they aren't foolproof but being able to say anything rated anything other than G or PG needs a pin to play is basic functionality for consumer level devices these days, Being able to fine tune it through playlists and the like is great, but some simple control that the average parental controls offer would be a welcome addition, dismissing it out of hand and suggesting better parenting as the solution is not helpful. At least not in a XBMC feature suggestion forum, perhaps if this were a parenting forum it would fit.

As I Said, Place All Child UNFRIENDLY content into a share that requires a password.

Create a Profile that only has the UNFRIENDLY content (and password protect the profile)

this is all the parental control you need. Anything more and it does come down to parenting.

I keep 3 profiles. Since I babysit my niece and nephew quite often
1 for General Content
1 for Adult series/Movies (Family Guy, Simpsons, South Park)
1 for X rated material. (for personal use)

the general content 1 does not require a password.
The Adult series/Movies 1, requires a simple password for the profile (the sources for that profile has the password embedded to access the source)
The X Rated 1, has a completely different Password for both the sources and profile.

But a reasonable parent would not let their child to watch anything without permission, in fact I won't let my niece or nephew watch anything without me being present. Thus I password protect my HTPC so they cannot access it unless I unlock it.

So those of us who shirk this off to parenting have good reason.

You mentioned Ratings as a way to monitor content. This does not work, Many war movies from 1939-1970s have no rating, infact many movies in that period of time have no ratings.

[garbear]

awesome parental controls: i just put all my porn in C:/Documents and Settings/garrett/My Documents/faxes/sent faxes

completely foolproof

[ibixat]

As I Said, Place All Child UNFRIENDLY content into a share that requires a password.

Create a Profile that only has the UNFRIENDLY content (and password protect the profile)

this is all the parental control you need. Anything more and it does come down to parenting.

I keep 3 profiles. Since I babysit my niece and nephew quite often
1 for General Content
1 for Adult series/Movies (Family Guy, Simpsons, South Park)
1 for X rated material. (for personal use)

the general content 1 does not require a password.
The Adult series/Movies 1, requires a simple password for the profile (the sources for that profile has the password embedded to access the source)
The X Rated 1, has a completely different Password for both the sources and profile.

But a reasonable parent would not let their child to watch anything without permission, in fact I won't let my niece or nephew watch anything without me being present. Thus I password protect my HTPC so they cannot access it unless I unlock it.

So those of us who shirk this off to parenting have good reason.

You mentioned Ratings as a way to monitor content. This does not work, Many war movies from 1939-1970s have no rating, infact many movies in that period of time have no ratings.

I mentioned ratings suggesting that you could set it so that if it's not G or PG it would require a pin.. What makes you think that unrated is magically unlocked in that scenario. Setting up profiles and password protected shares is the "Geek's Toy" way of doing it. Having a centralized "Parental Controls" area is another way.

It could even be as simple as a parental control settings tab with a master pin, and then when you add a source you could set it as locked or unlocked. Or in that tab just list all the sources you've added and decide if they are locked or unlocked. I said it before, you CAN secure the system as it is now, I never argued you couldn't, But a password protected share is not a solution from within XBMC, it's using something else to set up this security.

That may work for you, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Why is your approach to it the only way there should be? I wish you'd listen to yourself. "I do it this way and if that's not good enough for you it's your parenting that's at fault" (Paraphrasing "this is all the parental control you need. Anything more and it does come down to parenting") Get over yourself dude, you have your solution and your happy, people asking for more options doesn't impact you and "your way".

But a reasonable parent would not let their child to watch anything without permission, in fact I won't let my niece or nephew watch anything without me being present.

Really? Do you have a stay at home spouse for an older child who gets home from school an hour or two before you get home from work? Do you hire a sitter for a 16 year old when you go out for an evening? So before you judge everyone's parenting skills as being less than your own, or unacceptable, just step back and get over yourself. A request for a feature is not a reflection of parenting, turning it into one because you think you can do what they are asking for in a different manner involving third party security (password protected shares) just makes you the unreasonable one. This is a feature request forum, not a Parenting tips forum.

[WhiteRavenCoatL]

Well said and thanks for the support Ibixat! EXACTLY.

@isamu.dragon: The three-tiered approach is fine, but is something that is applied AFTER you have determined the content level. I'm talking about a tool to help INITIALLY DETERMINE THE CONTENT LEVEL, SIGHT UNSEEN. I asked for a school bus and you told me where to park, which are two separate things.

Adding these ratings would be a welcome tool. It should be easier to implement than the existing IMDB ratings field (which I could care less about). The Kids-In-Mind ratings would make more precise filtering of content much easier to do.

[isamu.dragon]

Well said and thanks for the support Ibixat! EXACTLY.

@isamu.dragon: The three-tiered approach is fine, but is something that is applied AFTER you have determined the content level. I'm talking about a tool to help INITIALLY DETERMINE THE CONTENT LEVEL, SIGHT UNSEEN. I asked for a school bus and you told me where to park, which are two separate things.

Adding these ratings would be a welcome tool. It should be easier to implement than the existing IMDB ratings field (which I could care less about). The Kids-In-Mind ratings would make more precise filtering of content much easier to do.

to work with your setup, I suggest a 2 tier setup
1st tier Approved Content, Anyone could access
2nd tier,Unapproved + Pending Content, Password Required. (All Content that is Either Unapproved by you or you do not know if you want to expose your child to.)

Both IMDB & theMovieDB keep ratings, but until 1965 ratings were not used on movies (unless rated X or NC-17) and were not widely used until the mid-1970s so ratings for older movies are not very dependable

@ibixat
why is it when items that receive criticism, because they require a little work, considered "geek tools"? This setup is easy, my 80 year old grandmother uses it herself. In fact, she taught me how to use it.

The reason it is called "Profiles" instead of "Parental Controls" is because it can be used for more than restricting material.

And since I only have a niece and nephew, I don't know how it feels to wait for my kids at home. But my own parents (who both worked) would lock the breaker box in our house and turn off power to the living room (where the only TV was located).

Just because it requires a little work, doesn't make it a "geek tool". On some of these items, google is your friend to setup.

[Martijn]

Another advantage of profiles is they will get a separate library so also their own media sources, watched status, skin settings, playlists and list goes on.
So i also recommend using smartplaylist. They are very simple to use. Just set some playlist rules you want (media location or rating, genre, titles.....) and in some skins these playlists can be added as a main menu item so easy accessible

[WhiteRavenCoatL]

WOW... way to miss the point entirely!

First off, I'm not arguing about profiles, use profiles to limit content available sure, fine, great... we're not talking about that.

I'm talking about a source of information, not a form of segregation... the control METHOD is COMPLETELY beside the point. I ask for a phone book and you tell me how you set up a speed dial... It's completely irrelevant!

I also don't care about when the MPAA ratings were adopted, because that is also irrelevant. I don't use MPAA ratings at all because they have NEVER been consistent or reliable. MPAA ratings are made by an anonymous group of industry puppets and rarely have much to do with the content of the film at all. If you want further confirmation of that fact, just watch "This Film Is Not Yet Rated".

I'm talking about KIDS-IN-MIND.COM ratings which are ENTIRELY and COMPLETELY separate. The reliability of MPAA ratings has nothing whatsoever to do with the reliability of Kids-In-Mind ratings... NOTHING. Don't care.

I'm not talking about what you do with content after you have determined its acceptability level, I'm talking about getting acceptability level information BEFORE viewing. I'm talking about another tool to sort content with, NOT WHAT TO DO ONCE YOU'VE SORTED YOUR CONTENT. And no, I'm not afraid to do a little work, obviously, since I'm looking all this stuff up by hand right now, but it would be NICE to have a scraper to do that for me, and for the thousands of other parents who use this system.

Sometimes I let the kids watch things that are beyond their age level (while I'm with them for guidance) but I like to have some idea what I'm getting into ahead of time. I do not have the time to watch everything BEFORE my kids, then WITH my kids. Anyone who thinks that that is a practical solution for all parents in 2011 is ... [censored].

[Martijn]

So what you want is some scraper that gets the rating from kids-in-mind.com and store in a data field that belongs to that field and show that info on screen?

For that to work the site needs some search function that returns those specific ratings to the scraper which stores it in xbmc.
To do:
Adapt site to process/return requests
Write scraper