When Chemists Attack

While on my weekly Target run, I noticed something new in the electronics department. There was a small kiosk devoted to this device: The ClearPlay DVD Player.

Looks like a plain old DVD player, even if the color scheme is a bit goofy. So, what’s the big deal? Does the player, perhaps, try to clean up digital artifacts on early DVD releases so the picture is … clearer?

Well, not exactly. I’ll let Clearplay themselves explain it:

What is ClearPlay?
Great question! ClearPlay is a fancy DVD Player that can play regular DVD movies — but without profanity, violence and nudity.

Wow! How does that work?
It’s really quite ingenious. We create filtering information on a movie by movie basis, and then put those “filters” into the DVD player. This way, the DVD player knows when to skip or mute while the movie is playing.

You buy this player, and then pay ClearPlay for downloadable “filters”, so the player can possibly skip “offensive” parts.

Want Little Johnny to be able to watch Saving Private Ryan (no, really) without any yucky talk about fucking sons of bitches? Well, just buy this player and the filter, and Little Johnny can take in all of the entertaining violence without the horrifying swear words! (If you look at the description of the filter for Saving Private Ryan, much violence remains uncut.)

What a senseless waste of perfectly good electronic circuitry. Here’s a novel idea. Why not simply … avoid watching movies that you find offensive, or avoid leaving them around where your kids can watch them?