# Bring Kid Zone back



## Bulldawg9908 (Feb 19, 2011)

There's been a pretty good discussion of this in some of the 20.2.2 threads already, but I think it deserves its own thread. Kid Zone was a very important feature for me, and I want it brought back. I have two lifetime Premiers, so the threat of me leaving TiVo carries little weight, but maybe if enough people chime in, TiVo will reconsider.

I've sent an e-mail through TiVo's support portal expressing my dissatisfaction, and I'll share it here below, as it outlines the problems I have with the removal of Kid Zone. Have I missed anything?

If you'd like it back, I suggest you also write to TiVo and maybe send a message to TiVoMargret asking them to reconsider and bring back Kid Zone. Be cordial, no one listens to a jackass.



> I received 20.2.2 for both of my TiVo Premiers. I used the Kid Zone feature previously to this update, and I am writing to express my dissatisfaction at the removal of Kid Zone features from 20.2.2. Kid Zone allowed fine, customized control over which shows my son could watch. Parental controls is a poor substitute for Kid Zone. Below are just a few ways in which parental controls are worse than Kid Zone:
> 
> 1. Parental controls can't block YouTube or Netflix. There's a lot of inappropriate content on YouTube and Netflix, and the links to them are right at the bottom of My Shows.
> 
> ...


edit: Another user (morac) has informed me there is a way to disable the YouTube app, but the method is so hidden that in ten minutes of searching, I couldn't find it, so I'm leaving my comment in the letter. If I needed help from this forum to figure out how to disable YouTube, how many parents out there also won't figure it out on their own?


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Flood the TiVo support forum with compaints. TiVo customer service reps monitor that forum.
http://forums.tivo.com/pe/elementDisplayRedirect.jsp?elementID=10100105

Also, everyone who wants the feature back needs to request it here:
http://advisors.tivo.com/wix5/p2272893819.aspx


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

KidZone isn't going to be back, they've been very very clear about that, part of the reason was that it was too much to redo it for the HDUI. 

That being said, there's no reason to think that there won't be additional future enhancements to the Parental Controls.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The option to remove YouTube isn't hidden. Go to Setting->Channels->My Video Providers. That brings up a list of all the 3rd party video providers and you can uncheck the ones you don't want.

As for the rest... I agree it sucks. I don't actually use it myself, but I played with both options and the current parental controls are a lot more limited then KidZone

Personally I'm hoping that this is a sign that TiVo is moving toward a profile system where each member of the household is presented with their own My Shows, guide, etc... and the current parental controls are simply used to limit access certain users have to inappropriate shows/channels. It would kind of be like KidZone, but for everyone. It would also make having one 4-6 tuner box do all the recording for the whole family be a lot easier for everyone to manage.

Dan


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

dianebrat said:


> KidZone isn't going to be back, they've been very very clear about that, part of the reason was that it was too much to redo it for the HDUI.


Link?



Dan203 said:


> Personally I'm hoping that this is a sign that TiVo is moving toward a profile system where each member of the household is presented with their own My Shows, guide, etc... and the current parental controls are simply used to limit access certain users have to inappropriate shows/channels. It would kind of be like KidZone, but for everyone. It would also make having one 4-6 tuner box do all the recording for the whole family be a lot easier for everyone to manage.
> 
> Dan


I agree.

It could be the KidZone replacement with the parents setting up the kids' profiles.

But who knows if TiVo is even working on this?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The only evidence we have is several years ago there was a screen shot of the HDUI posted somewhere where they had multiple users listed on the right when you selected My Shows on the left. That indicates that they were at least considering it at one point. Enough to do a UI mockup at least.

Dan


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## Bulldawg9908 (Feb 19, 2011)

Parental controls don't even work right. I have TV-G set as allowed. Frosty the Snowman won't play despite the fact that it is clearly rated in the description and in the show as TV-G. Other shows, mostly on PBS do the same thing. If parental controls actually worked correctly, that would be nicer. 

My biggest problem is that if my son wants to watch something that is erroneously blocked, my wife has to type in the PIN. Then, when that show is over, she's in the other room feeding the baby and my son now has unrestricted access to the TiVo. What if he decides to see what Game of Thrones is like? I don't think he would, but that show is brutal, so even the fact he has access to it is pretty scary to me.


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## Bulldawg9908 (Feb 19, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> The option to remove YouTube isn't hidden. Go to Setting->Channels->My Video Providers. That brings up a list of all the 3rd party video providers and you can uncheck the ones you don't want.
> 
> Dan


I disagree that this isn't hidden. I see it now, but when I was looking to disable YouTube the other night, I skipped right over channels because that is where you set what channels are available, not what apps are available in the My Shows list. They stuck that setting in this random place because they didn't have a better place to stuff it when they added the option to watch YouTube.

Anyway, I've fixed that now, but the setting could be in a more obvious place.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Bulldawg9908 said:


> Parental controls don't even work right. I have TV-G set as allowed. Frosty the Snowman won't play despite the fact that it is clearly rated in the description and in the show as TV-G. Other shows, mostly on PBS do the same thing. If parental controls actually worked correctly, that would be nicer.
> 
> My biggest problem is that if my son wants to watch something that is erroneously blocked, my wife has to type in the PIN. Then, when that show is over, she's in the other room feeding the baby and my son now has unrestricted access to the TiVo. What if he decides to see what Game of Thrones is like? I don't think he would, but that show is brutal, so even the fact he has access to it is pretty scary to me.


I believe that they have to get the actual video stream and not the guide data. So if you pad the show and the one before it has a higher ratting it might pick up that as the rating for the entire recording and block the whole thing.

Dan


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

dianebrat said:


> KidZone isn't going to be back, they've been very very clear about that, part of the reason was that it was too much to redo it for the HDUI.
> 
> That being said, there's no reason to think that there won't be additional future enhancements to the Parental Controls.





steve614 said:


> Link?


I could swear I've seen it here, and I can't link to the other non-public location, but they were pretty clear it's gone.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> The only evidence we have is several years ago there was a screen shot of the HDUI posted somewhere where they had multiple users listed on the right when you selected My Shows on the left. That indicates that they were at least considering it at one point. Enough to do a UI mockup at least.
> 
> Dan


I have to agree that 'personalization' is on the TiVo road map. I would speculate that its a capability that would allow TiVo to stay one step ahead of the competition. I suspect the personalization will first be evident via TiVo's Pique social initiative. TiVo's October 24th acquisition of Zinc.TV for $5.3 million fits into the personalization and discovery realm as well.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

I think I will make controversial statement about Kid Zone and everything else that TiVo should be doing but isn't.

*Blame the FCC*​
They were supposed to foster the creation of a innovative, competitive, secondary market for pay TV set top boxes. Pay TV providers were successful in stopping the FCC and the FCC's failure is the reason we do not and will not have competitive innovative products like what TiVo should be by now.

The FCC should have demanded that any solution work universally for all pay TV providers and that the solution allow third party STBs to be able to seamlessly provide 100% of what the pay TV providers STB provides without any additional hardware or restrictions (beyond the protection of content form theft) from the pay TV provider.

Frankly I think we are lucky TiVo is still around and providing as good a product as they do. I do not expect them to be able to allocate the resources necessary to develop the products we all would like. The current stand alone DVR market is just to small, which is in no small part due to the FCC's failure. Our only real hope is that by providing cable providers with DVRs that that money allows TiVo to continue to provide the stand alone market with DVRs.


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

dianebrat said:


> I could swear I've seen it here, and I can't link to the other non-public location, but they were pretty clear it's gone.


It was either here or on Twitter but it was stated VERY clearly Kidzone is NOT coming back


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> I think I will make controversial statement about Kid Zone and everything else that TiVo should be doing but isn't.
> 
> *Blame the FCC*​
> They were supposed to foster the creation of a innovative, competitive, secondary market for pay TV set top boxes. Pay TV providers were successful in stopping the FCC and the FCC's failure is the reason we do not and will not have competitive innovative products like what TiVo should be by now.
> ...


Agreed. You'll see some interesting comments from the AllVid Tech Alliance referenced in this thread --> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=496898

I'm cautiously optimistic that the FCC will deny Charters integrated security waiver request. I think the recent publication related to the IP Interface on set tops is a step in the right direction. I suspect that we will finally have some progress on this front in the 2014-15 time-frame. The wheels of change move very slowly!


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## Bulldawg9908 (Feb 19, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> I believe that they have to get the actual video stream and not the guide data. So if you pad the show and the one before it has a higher ratting it might pick up that as the rating for the entire recording and block the whole thing.
> 
> Dan


If your theory is true, then that explains why parental controls are so broken when it comes to allowing shows that should be allowed, but that doesn't excuse how broken they are. To get around this and allow my son to watch Curious George, we have to enter the pin and unlock the TiVo for watching anything at all for at least 4 hours.

I know we can re-enable parental controls with "only" 5 button presses, but if I'm not home, and my wife is feeding the baby, there is no adult available to reenable parental controls. With Kid Zone, this wouldn't be a problem.

BTW, I don't pad shows, so if your theory is correct, it's blocking the entire 2 hour Frosty the Snowman movie because there are a few seconds of the previous show at the beginning of the recording. Broken. Parental controls are broken and they should be fixed or Kid Zone should be brought back ASAP.


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## Bulldawg9908 (Feb 19, 2011)

I do not think it's reasonable to blame the FCC for this. TiVo chose to disable a feature I had come to depend on to ensure my son could safely watch TV for the 30 minutes a day he's allowed to watch TV.

I agree that more competition is better, but excusing TiVo for this one particular decision because of the FCC is ludicrous.


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

compnurd said:


> It was either here or on Twitter but it was stated VERY clearly Kidzone is NOT coming back


Yeah, I remember TiVo Margaret saying something about it (On Twitter I think).

I wonder if Pony leaving had anything to do with it. I remember he seemed super excited about Kidzone when it came out. I haven't used it, but it's a shame it's gone, as it seemed like a logical differentiator for TiVo.


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> The only evidence we have is several years ago there was a screen shot of the HDUI posted somewhere where they had multiple users listed on the right when you selected My Shows on the left.


See below.



aaronwt said:


> What they need to do is add the feature they showed at CES 2010. Where you could have multiple "my shows" lists to accomodate multiple people.





bradleys said:


> I would love to see that as well. This is something we could use.


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## TerpBE (Jan 23, 2003)

Tivo recently provided a way to prevent kids from accessing Netflix and Youtube: they introduced apps that are so slow and counter-intuitive that *nobody *can easily access them.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Bulldawg9908 said:


> I do not think it's reasonable to blame the FCC for this. TiVo chose to disable a feature I had come to depend on to ensure my son could safely watch TV for the 30 minutes a day he's allowed to watch TV.
> 
> I agree that more competition is better, but excusing TiVo for this one particular decision because of the FCC is ludicrous.


Yes TiVo is directly responsible for the decision to get rid of Kid Zone and not replace it with something acceptable.

TiVo's management has a responsibility to their share holders, all of their decisions are required to be what is believed to be in the best interest of those share holders. So the decision on what to do with a Kid Zone type feature is driven by the expected return on investment needed to retain it as they move forward with their UI development.

When I say blame the FCC I am going to why/how TiVo could decide to do what they are doing. The FCCs failure has caused the potential market for stand alone DVRs/whole home DVR systems to be substantially less than what it could be. That reduction in market size has nearly eliminated competition and substantially reduced TiVos actual and potential revenues. Because of the lack of competition and reduced revenues TiVo is making investment decisions that are completely different than what they would have been making if there were real competition and significantly more potential revenues.

So while I really can not know exactly what features/products the FCC's failure impacted, I am positive it has been a negative for those of us who want an innovative third party stand alone DVR/whole home DVR system.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

When the Premiere was released, TiVo Central, My Shows, Search and Browse... were the only menus in HD. It's taken 2 additional years to convert the Guide, To Do List, History, Season Pass Manager, Manual recording, Multi-Room Viewing and Help screens to HD. 

I think that leaves Wish Lists, Web Videos and Showcases, Settings and System Info as the only remaining SD screens. Those would probably take about a year, which likely explains why they aren't bothering with Kid Zone. They don't have the time.

So maybe by 2014 TiVo can start working on implementing a better parental control system or user profiles. Probably just in time for the Series 5 to come out. 

TiVo as a company has what can be likenedd to A.D.D. It doesn't seem like they can stay focused on an idea for any length of time. There's a number of features/ideas on TiVo boxes that simply disappeared without a word (Yahoo, Dominos, Blockbuster, FrameChannel, Jaman, TiVo Home Movie Sharing, "My TiVo Gets Me", etc). 

Kid Zone wasn't the first feature to disappear and it won't be the last.


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## flashedbios (Dec 7, 2012)

I just noticed how many of you use the parental controls. wow. are you guys nazis or something? I let my kid watch anything she wants to. shes 9 years old so i figure anything she sees on TV is fine. I also let her play any video game she wants, though shes doesnt like video games as much as TV. I just think controlling parents are making a big mistake and setting themselves up for a broken relationship with their kids especially in teenage years.


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

flashedbios said:


> I just noticed how many of you use the parental controls. wow. are you guys nazis or something? I let my kid watch anything she wants to. shes 9 years old so i figure anything she sees on TV is fine. I also let her play any video game she wants, though shes doesnt like video games as much as TV. I just think controlling parents are making a big mistake and setting themselves up for a broken relationship with their kids especially in teenage years.


or the opposite where you dont monitor anything like my aunt and uncle did with my two cousins and you have two of the worst children on earth


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

compnurd said:


> or the opposite where you dont monitor anything like my aunt and uncle did with my two cousins and you have two of the worst children on earth


Yeah. Completely hands off parenting leads to horrific stories like this.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20121025_ap_2sidestonjteensaccusedofkillinggirl.html


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

/thread is Godwin'd, 

/FIN


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## bengalfreak (Oct 20, 2002)

flashedbios said:


> I just noticed how many of you use the parental controls. wow. are you guys nazis or something? I let my kid watch anything she wants to. shes 9 years old so i figure anything she sees on TV is fine. I also let her play any video game she wants, though shes doesnt like video games as much as TV. I just think controlling parents are making a big mistake and setting themselves up for a broken relationship with their kids especially in teenage years.


Troll


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## Joykins (Dec 16, 2012)

flashedbios said:


> I just noticed how many of you use the parental controls. wow. are you guys nazis or something? I let my kid watch anything she wants to. shes 9 years old so i figure anything she sees on TV is fine. I also let her play any video game she wants, though shes doesnt like video games as much as TV. I just think controlling parents are making a big mistake and setting themselves up for a broken relationship with their kids especially in teenage years.


We found that Kids Zone empowered our kids by giving them their own space in the TiVo--they could have all their shows easy to access quickly and not get confused by the clutter of the parents' tv shows. Also it allowed us to designate shows that the program didn't allow for them to watch, but which they enjoy and are appropriate for children, which is the sort of personalized data customization that 21st century IT is all about and our children just lost. Of course, if you like clutter and things taking a long time you'll just love the HD UI and Parental Controls.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

KidZone isn't coming back. It wasn't used by enough folks to justify redevelopment on the new platform.

However, Netflix and Amazon have rolled out similar sandboxes for OTT content and a former colleague of mine runs Zoodles, which is worth checking out is you're looking for age-appropriate games on computers or tablets. So while TiVo has reverted to classic parental controls, I think other providers will continue getting creating with kid-friendly areas and presentation.


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## Sepia (Jan 5, 2002)

The current implementation of Parental Controls is severely lacking. KidZone, I think, was that cutting edge feature that differentiated TiVo from the rest.

Whoever made the decision at TiVo to axe it, should be fired. Plain and simple. It's a huge step back.

KidZone allowed kids to have their own "safe" menu, where everything in that menu was approved by a parent, not a bureaucrat. 

With the current parental control, you cannot hide the title names of shows that you don't want your kids to see. Think any Cinemax After Hours show, and their names. Do you really want your kids to see what mommy and daddy are recording? (even though they can't play it?)

Another issue, is that kids too young to read were able to play anything from KidZone, even without being able to read the titles, and it was a show they liked. With the current parental controls, those kids have to go into each show, realize it's blocked, etc.... it's a mess.

It was a huge mistake to get rid of KidZone, and huge step back for TiVo's being a cutting edge company. *There is no excuse* I don't care about how KidZone was a hack and the code is hard to put into HD menus, those are all excuses. Get the resources and get it done.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Sepia said:


> It was a huge mistake to get rid of KidZone, and huge step back for TiVo's being a cutting edge company. *There is no excuse* I don't care about how KidZone was a hack and the code is hard to put into HD menus, those are all excuses. Get the resources and get it done.


Prepare to be disappointed, KidZone will not be back as others and myself have stated, Tivo will not put the resources into a feature that requires that much work to rewrite AND had a minimal footprint.

If KidZone is a requirement for you to stay with Tivo then I'm sorry to see you go.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Well, I can see some of these folk falling back to a kids tivo or a series 3/HD unit. 

I hope that user profiles takes its place eventually. If I were going to complain to Tivo, I would push for that considering their stance on kidzone.

Other than folks adding to their porn collection and the crazy names you would not want kids to read, children will quickly figure out which shows are theirs. Mine grew up with Tivo and they never had any issues figuring out what was for them.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

jrtroo said:


> Well, I can see some of these folk falling back to a kids tivo or a series 3/HD unit.
> 
> I hope that user profiles takes its place eventually. If I were going to complain to Tivo, I would push for that considering their stance on kidzone.
> 
> Other than folks adding to their porn collection and the crazy names you would not want kids to read, children will quickly figure out which shows are theirs. Mine grew up with Tivo and they never had any issues figuring out what was for them.


i agree that the HD "myshows" is easy enough for the kids to navigate- my youngest is just learning to read so she picks out the pictures. There's more specific than the channel logos the older ones learned to navigate by.

But there's still some things that give me pause sitting in the list. For example- i have been saving "Giuliani's 9/11" in the list for some time now until i get some time to sit down and watch it. The name is pretty harmless but i do wonder if one day my older one's will get around to asking me what that is and then I'll need to have a talk about it with them. There's already been plenty of talks in life, several of them about 9/11, but it is somewhat annoying that one day I might sit down with them to watch a charlie brown christmas or something and not wanting to get into anything deep at the moment but that 9/11 might come up.

Nothing horrible or enough to make me want to get rid of Tivo, but it's annoying that a feature we used for convenience has been removed and there's really no apology that the alternative they gave us is not up to snuff. Apple even apologized for the map program mess. No peep out of tivo to say sorry or that at some point in the future (2016+) they hope to get around to profiles as an improved replacement.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I believe that they have to get the actual video stream and not the guide data. So if you pad the show and the one before it has a higher ratting it might pick up that as the rating for the entire recording and block the whole thing.
> 
> Dan


I'm not 1,000% sure but i think that it locks things up second by second (or minute by minute). So if you have an R rated show (and you block those) but you pad it first with G rated it will show you the g rated bit then the screen goes blank and it prompts for the pin.

sometimes it even has choked when the switch from one rating to another happens quickly at the beginning of the recording.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

All of you people here are just talking to a wall. Unless you contact TiVo and tell them you want it back, it won't do anything. Even if you DO contact them, it might not do anything. If any of you are monthly subscribers and cancel Tivo BECAUSE of this, tell them that.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

mattack said:


> All of you people here are just talking to a wall. Unless you contact TiVo and tell them you want it back, it won't do anything. Even if you DO contact them, it might not do anything. If any of you are monthly subscribers and cancel Tivo BECAUSE of this, tell them that.


+1

http://advisors.tivo.com/wix5/p2272893819.aspx

Emphasize that you want a new feature that emulates KidZone, or better yet, individual profiles with parental control.


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## Sepia (Jan 5, 2002)

TiVo claims that it is a "niche group" that used KidZone. I don't know where they got their data from, but I have a hard time reconciling that feature with "niche group."

If their data is accurate, they will not spare development time on it, but that would be very unfortunate. 

As TiVo is rolling out on more and more cable companies natively (Charter is about to use TiVos in my area), it would reach more and more families with kids to whom this feature is most relevant.

The current incarnation of Parental Guidance does not work. The two main critical failures are:

1. Cannot prevent kids who can read from seeing inappropriate titles (Think cinnemax after dark titles)

2. For kids who can't read, on a TiVo Premier XL, to have to sift through dozens of titles to hope to get to one that is relevant and allowed can be very frustrating.

All the current incarnation of Parental Guidance does, is an attempt at preventing kids from watching inappropriate content. In some instances it fails at that as well, if a parent disagrees with the rating of the show.

KidZone worked just fine.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

Sepia said:


> TiVo claims that it is a "niche group" that used KidZone. I don't know where they got their data from, but I have a hard time reconciling that feature with "niche group."....


I don't have any hard data, but I'd guess the average demographic of TiVo users skews older (when KidZone would be a non-issue)...


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Sepia said:


> TiVo claims that it is a "niche group" that used KidZone. I don't know where they got their data from, but I have a hard time reconciling that feature with "niche group."....


i think by "niche group" they mean "small"

since they track every button press they certainly know exactly what percentage of users used the thing. I'd venture to say that they know to several decimal places deep exactly what percentage of us actually used it.

The dont really have anything to gain by lying about it- so I dont think we have very much leverage at all.

Someone in one of these threads spoke of tivo's having attention deficit and keeps getting rid of things over the years. I think the only question is- if they keep lopping off features that only a small percentage of users use- do they eventually knock off enough things that a majority of people get pissed by it. Who knows when the jump the shark moment is- but i dont get the sense that killing off kidzone is that moment.


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## jasew (Jun 12, 2012)

I'd be curious to know what the percentage of HDUI users there are are compared to SDUI. I would've used KidZone if it had been available in the HDUI. How many people didn't use KidZone for that reason?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Their data is probably a larger set than just looking at premieres. They would have included the S3 users of kidzone as well to make their determination.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

MichaelK said:


> i think by "niche group" they mean "small"
> 
> since they track every button press they certainly know exactly what percentage of users used the thing. I'd venture to say that they know to several decimal places deep exactly what percentage of us actually used it.
> 
> ...


If Tivo keeps getting rid of features that make them unique, why would anybody want to buy one?

I was going to buy a Tivo Premiere for the KidZone feature, but I'm not now. My FIOS DVR does parental controls better. It does block the titles of the shows and recordings and replaces them with "Adult title". It's still a pain to turn the parental controls on and off, but at least they seem to work.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

MichaelK said:


> I'm not 1,000% sure but i think that it locks things up second by second (or minute by minute). So if you have an R rated show (and you block those) but you pad it first with G rated it will show you the g rated bit then the screen goes blank and it prompts for the pin.
> 
> sometimes it even has choked when the switch from one rating to another happens quickly at the beginning of the recording.


Yeah I think that's true. So in the case where a show is G rated but contains a few seconds of the end of an R rated show at the beginning it will block the entire show and force the parent to input their pin to play the G rated program.

What they should do instead is block the audio/video marked R but continue to play with a non-blocking message on screen saying "This content is blocked by the parental controls to this unblock this content press enter and enter your pin". If it reaches a portion of the program which does not violate the restrictions then it should start playing again. That would prevent the situation where Mom or Dad have to enter their pin, unlocking the whole device, just so Jr. Can watch a show with a few seconds of restricted content.

Dan


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

MichaelK said:


> i think by "niche group" they mean "small"
> 
> since they track every button press they certainly know exactly what percentage of users used the thing. *I'd venture to say that they know to several decimal places deep exactly what percentage of us actually used it.*
> 
> The dont really have anything to gain by lying about it- so I dont think we have very much leverage at all.


I think you're more than spot on with that, Tivo knows exactly how many (or how few) folks actually used the feature, and as nice as it can be to some folks, there's a diminishing return when you start maintaining features for a very small base of your users.


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## beejay (Feb 3, 2001)

jasew said:


> I'd be curious to know what the percentage of HDUI users there are are compared to SDUI. I would've used KidZone if it had been available in the HDUI. How many people didn't use KidZone for that reason?


I would have used KidZone except I like HDUI.

I had used KidZone on previous TiVos as WifeZone, not to lock her out (of course) but to allow her to just see her stuff.

I hope the hint of multiple profile zones comes to pass.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

MichaelK said:


> i think by "niche group" they mean "small"


Which is fairly accurate. If you're not for a generalized market, you're specialized, and a specialized market is almost by definition small.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

jasew said:


> I'd be curious to know what the percentage of HDUI users there are are compared to SDUI. I would've used KidZone if it had been available in the HDUI. How many people didn't use KidZone for that reason?


I think anyone that picked the HDUI over kidzone(in the SDUI) proved their point.

Sadly I supposed my family added to that math...


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Yeah I think that's true. So in the case where a show is G rated but contains a few seconds of the end of an R rated show at the beginning it will block the entire show and force the parent to input their pin to play the G rated program.
> 
> What they should do instead is block the audio/video marked R but continue to play with a non-blocking message on screen saying "This content is blocked by the parental controls to this unblock this content press enter and enter your pin". *If it reaches a portion of the program which does not violate the restrictions then it should start playing again.* That would prevent the situation where Mom or Dad have to enter their pin, unlocking the whole device, just so Jr. Can watch a show with a few seconds of restricted content.
> 
> Dan


not certain but i think at least sometimes it will allow you to fast forward the R rated bit to get to the G rated bit and then start playing. (maybe it's just in the buffer?)

the thing is since it generally sucks eggs so bad (as compared to kidzone) we just assume it's not behaving properly so we hit the pin most times before taking the time to fast forward and see if eventually it fixes itself.

the real world example in my home is baseball games- for whatever reason they aren't rated consistantly so many/most times we have to unlock. With Kidzone we just told the box to allow "MLB Baseball" and it was all good to go.


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