TV Guardian - What it Does and How it Works

Would you like to be entertained without being unnecessarily offended? There are good movies that are ruined for many families by incessant foul language. But there is a solution. For just under $100 we bought something called a TVGuardian - the Foul Language Filter. It is a small triangular shaped plastic black box with A/V cables and a coaxial cable. You run A/V cables from the DVD player to the box, then from the box to the television to filter DVDs. You can also plug in an antenna with the coaxial cable, then plug that in to the television, if you want to filter bad language out of TV shows. It will also work with your VCR unit. A new option is to buy a DVD unit where, for a one-time activation fee of $29.95, you can have TV Guardian preloaded, then activate it following directions on their website. After you get it all hooked up, or preloaded and activated through the website, you will be able to filter out bad language from your otherwise entertaining films.

The TV Guardian works by using the closed captioning feature. When it recognizes a swear word or a crude phrase, it mutes the sound, and down at the bottom of the screen it recreates that part of the conversation in a clean way. An added benefit is that you aren't just lip reading the original, or filling in the muted blank with your active imagination. The TV Guardian takes a little getting used to, but it is well worth it when it allows you to watch the many movies whose only offensive parts are the ubiquitous swear words. There are different settings to allow you to custom set it for your preferences. For instance, you can set it anywhere from "mild," to filter out only the most egregious of swear words, all the way up to "strict," which takes out even what many people consider mild swear words. You can also set it for how often you want the words displayed on the screen. There are settings so you can watch religious programming without having the unit, in an effort to protect you from blasphemy, become downright blasphemous! The manufacturers have an excellent website that explains where this device, or pre-loadable DVD units can be purchased, as well as how to activate or set up your filter, how to trouble shoot, and how to use the various settings.

TV Guardian isn't perfect. For one thing, it is a little over protective. Some perfectly innocent words or phrases are quickly edited, sometimes rendering the meaning ridiculous, and making you think of what they must have been thinking it meant by it, thereby defeating the purpose entirely. Also, there are some studios that disable the function so that you can't weed out the swearing. For instance, I cannot comfortably watch the movie "Back to the Future" because Universal Studios does not provide closed captioning on its DVDs in a format that will work with this device. You can't use the TV Guardian on TV/VCR combo units, or on live television programming. And of course if someone ad-libs a swear word, it may not catch that. If a movie has a tremendous amount of swearing, the interruptions can be distracting. However, if you have to "read" the entire movie, chances are that bad language is not going to be the only offensive part of the movie anyway!

Overall, I think the benefits of using the TV Guardian far outweigh the relatively minor problems. I love being able to relax and watch a movie with my children, nieces or parents without cringing over all the bad language. I would definitely recommend the TV Guardian Foul Language Filter to families who love a good movie and don't want the distraction of foul language to keep them from enjoying it.

Sources:

https://tvguardian.com/gshell.php?page=HOME

http://tvguardian.com/gshell.php?page=FAQ&PHPSESSID=86cdfbdd52e288ad79b69695a8b82e10