One errata: ATSC = Advanced Television SYSTEMS Committee. :D George
-----Original Message----- Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 10:02 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Peter et al: I believe the EIA standard you want is EIA-744, if the USA's FCC is to be believed: http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Orders/1998/fcc98036.html Be advised also that EIA-744 will be incorporated into the next edition EIA-608, and will then be known as EIA-608-B. As far as invoking parental controls on certain DVDs, that's actually done in the firmware of a DVD player's ROM. Basically, parental controls are password protected, which means you have to read the user's guide to find the password before the DVD player's parental controls functions can be accessed. If you have a multi-function DVD player/digital set-top box with Internet access capability, updating your firmware over the 'Net is a no-brainer. This excerpted text from the FCC may also be enlightening: "...some television receivers and video cassette recorders (VCRs) incorporate the ability to block video programming on a date/time/channel basis. That is, the user can program the television receiver not to receive a specific program that occurs at a specific time, or on a specific date or channel. Such date/time/channel blocking (D/T/C) capability could facilitate the use of alternative rating systems that are not distributed by line 21." I imagine the folks at Philips have already incorporated this feature set into its line of DVD recorders. A second excerpted passage realized even more relevant information: "We understand that ATSC has now finalized Doc. 193 which includes provisions for transmitting program related information such as program rating. The document was approved as an ATSC Standard and assigned the number A/65." ATSC is the Advanced Television Standards Committee. They can be found at http://www.atsc.org George Mena Sr. Technical Writer ESS Technology, Inc. Fremont, California, USA -- Author: George Mena INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB CHIPDIR-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
