Parental Controls

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hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#112247 2-Dec-2012 13:20

About to upgrade the Media Centre and want to put in place some parental control. Interested in what others are doing.

Would prefer to stick with a Windows Media Centre solution for the WAF and being able to use the Xbox as an extender.

So,my questions are,

1. Are all guide listings equal, or do I need to consider how these are imported, to make sure ratings are available.
2. Anyone found a time of day based solution. Only G-rated before 7pm would work well for us at the moment.
3. Are there any solutions that just hide the PG and above content, so the kids can't even see it is there?

Anything else I should consider?

rvangelder

352 posts

Ultimate Geek

#725759 2-Dec-2012 14:38

what worked for us is just telling the kids what shows they're not allowed to watch.
eg. no family guy
and they don't, cause kids generally respect the boundaries.

movies in mediabrowser are protected so a password is required to even list them.

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#725767 2-Dec-2012 15:07

Should add that my oldest is just 3, so he's still at the button mashing stage of navigation and isn't really aware there are even shows he shouldn't be watching. Would like to keep it that way for as long as possible, hence a solution that hides, non-G-rated material would be good.

Main problem at the moment is that all our content is bundled together, so his mashing can bring up inappropriate material quite easily. He has managed to start Family Guy by accident already :) Yes, we could ban him from the remotes and keyboard, but I'd rather he learnt to use them responsibly.

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#726435 3-Dec-2012 20:29

G-rated material stored in one directory, non-G stored in another, and an access password on the latter?

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#726476 3-Dec-2012 21:40

JimmyH: G-rated material stored in one directory, non-G stored in another, and an access password on the latter?

That would need to be automated somehow for recorded TV and I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel. I checked in my Vista MC recorded directory and the parental ratings aren't being populated on the files. Not sure if this is something Vista MC just doesn't do, or a limitation of the guide listings.

Looks like the Media Browser plugin adds some of the features I'm after. If nobody has any better ideas, that's probably what I'll start with.