Is the PG-13 Rating Keeping Viewers at Home?

The year was 1984, and Hollywood was seemingly pumping out blockbuster movies every month. Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Beverly Hills Cop, The Karate Kid, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Amadeus, Footloose, and The Terminator name only a few. Yet there are two titles in this list that would forever change the landscape of major motion pictures.

When the Temple of Doom was released May 23, 1984, millions of families flocked to see the new adventures of Dr. Indiana Jones. What they did not expect was to watch the evil Maharajah plunge is hand into a slave’s chest, extracting his still-beating heart, and showing it to the victim before dropping him into the pit of fire below. In tandem with the constant danger that “Short Round”, Indy’s young partner, is constantly exposed to, parents were left wondering if they should have kept their pre-teen children at home.

Later, in June, viewing audiences were introduced to a cute, cuddly mogwai named Gizmo and his ugly white-Mohawk-sporting, mischief-making Gremlin counterpart, Stripe. The blockbuster-hit Gremlins was the second movie in under a month that terrified unsuspecting young ones and their often agape-mouthed parents expecting a slightly edgier “E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial.”

Public outcry prompted Steven Spielberg (who produced Gremlins and directed Temple of Doom) to suggest to MPAA founder Jack Valenti a new rating that established a middle ground between the PG and R ratings. After approval from theater owners, the PG-13 rating was officially introduced to the public that July. The first movie to be released with a PG-13 rating was Red Dawn. Technically, The Flamingo Kid had received the first PG-13 rating but was shelved for five months, allowing Red Dawn to be released first. The new rating still allowed children under 13 to be admitted without a parent or guardian, but cautioned parents about potentially violent or offensive content. While a step in the right direction, the new rating confused movie-goers as to what the difference between PG and PG-13 really encompassed. Movies that borderlined the PG-13 rating often resulted in the MPAA rating them PG, again prompting parental protests and outcry against questionable material being shown to their young children.

Within a few years, the shift to PG-13 movies became more common as standards were tightened and better defined. With the exception of 1994, the number of PG-13 films has outnumbered the number of PG films since the early ’90s.

Here is where the problem begins. The 2004 Movie Attendance Study available from the MPAA Web site (www.mpaa.org) states, “The 12-39 age group makes up 30 percent of the population, yet represents nearly half of all annual theatrical admissions.” Within this group, nearly two-thirds are between the ages of 12-20. Thus, it is in the movie studios’ best interest to get their films approved for a PG-13 rating to ensure they are not neglecting half of their potential audience.

So what does this do to the quality of the films being currently released? To answer that, let us look at the ratings of the recent American remakes of Japanese horror films. Movies like: The Ring (PG-13), The Ring 2 (PG-13) and The Grudge (PG-13) were based on Japanese movies that were either originally not rated by the MPAA --- or in the case of Ju-On (of which The Grudge takes it’s origin) have an R rating.

The American versions are filmed with every intention of being rated R, yet they become, pun not intended, butchered in the editing room to fulfill the needs of the PG-13 rating. Once these films reach your local electronics store in the form of a DVD, they are available in three flavors: Original and Director’s Cut, or under the clever branding guise of Unrated. These Unrated films are actually the full strength rated-R solution to the watered-down counterpart that was released in theaters just months before.

This type of editing is not limited simply to horror films. A perfect example of softening a movie before the release would be 2004’s The Big Bounce in which it is very apparent (through woefully bad lip-syncing) the foul language has been redubbed to be less offensive.

A notable example of tampering with subject matter to meet a rating would be Alien vs. Predator, also released in 2004. This film garnering a PG-13 rating was laughable considering the previous four Alien movies and both Predator movies were all rated R. A quick jump to the Internet movie database IMDB.com provides information on every movie ever made. When you look up AVP, you will find a comment regarding an apparent special industry screening, in which the director stated that the film was always planned as an R-rated movie and shot that way. Only three weeks prior to the movie’s release, the studio changed it by cutting the film severely to ensure a lower PG-13 rating. It later was revealed that this "press-screening" never took place and was only an Internet rumor started by fans. That being said, the DVD release of AVP was available not only as the theatrical version, but also in an Unrated Director’s Cut version that includes eight minutes that expanded explanations of certain events and delivered the gore-filled content Alien and Predator fans were hoping for. In fact, it was the script and poor acting that held this movie back more than the few minutes of excessive violence and gore. But the possibility exists that it could have performed better at the box office had the fans of the two original franchises felt the material was better represented.

This subtle shift in focus has helped the PG-13 rating stray from its intended use. No longer is the PG-13 rating used as a regulatory system to help consumers decide what is appropriate for their children, but rather a device that movie studios use to gain access to a wider target audience no matter the subject matter.

Removing content to conform to a rating system can rarely be seen as a good thing. When studios remove situations and ideas to conform to an acceptable level of content deemed “potentially offensive,” they essentially are censoring the material. This often convolutes the meaning of any art form, including film, giving it significantly less impact. That, in turn, creates a lackluster response from viewers. More than anyone, consumers understand the need to protect young children from the increasing amount of shock material in major media today, but are studios really protecting them by removing the gore yet still showing the violent action? We have reached a point in today’s cinematic world that studios now compromise their films for the wrong reasons, leaving behind sub-standard material that no one can relate to.

We at Cobalt Cable feel that film is truly an art form and should not be compromised by the almighty dollar. We encourage the film industry to hold true to the original concepts that evolve from each individual film project. Diluting ideas only breeds mediocrity and creates a final product that will, more often than not, disappoint audiences. The decline of the cineplex has been looming in the distant future for some time now and is nearing rapidly. As home theaters become the chosen venue for movie viewing, it certainly could be noted that savvy audience members avoid going to movies not only due to the conveniences that their home theaters provide, but also to experience the original, unabridged content of a film, now released as an Unrated DVD. That, or maybe they are just tired of watching movies in a theater packed full of 12-year-old kids.

Xbox 360 & HD-DVD together this fall!?

Despite earlier claims to the contrary, Microsoft may in fact be developing a next-generation Xbox 360 with a built-in HD DVD drive.

DigiTimes says sources in Taiwanese optical disc drive (ODD) industry have covariant that Microsoft is currently in the process of selecting manufacturing partners for the second-gen console, and if development and certification proceeds smoothly, the company could launch the new Xbox 360 in the first half of 2007.

Microsoft has already announced an external HD DVD drive for first-gen Xbox 360 consoles, which is scheduled to launch later this fall. If the DigitTimes report proves true, an Xbox 360 with an internal HD DVD drive would seem to be a direct response to Sony's upcoming placated 3, which launches this November with a built-in Blu-ray drive.

Microsoft has thus far remained mum on this most recent round of rumors, but two months ago, the company denied that it was developing a second-gen Xbox 360 with integrated HD DVD support.

We'll keep you posted.

AV123's Southern California Get Together 2006

Here is a special post from Mike Hawker, he sponsored his own event hi-lighting all sorts of A/V equipment, featuring some awesome speakers from AV123. Mike was gracious enough to let Cobalt Cable participate. Without further adieu...

During the AV123.com So Cal GTG (southern California get-together) held in ascended, California, attendees had a chance to sit in on a Speaker Wire Demonstration to compare and judge the differences between "good" (Cobalt Cable) and "bad" (Mogami spliced to Radio Shack) speaker wire.

The Speaker Wire Demo was set up in a bedroom of the house serving as a 2 channel room. The equipment in the room was an Onix Melody SP3 tube amp and an Onix CD-1 cd player sending the information to either a set of Onix Rocket RS250's or RS450's. The Demo was done using the RS250's because they were sitting on the dresser at ear level so they were placed better for listening.

I used one song off of a Sheffield Drive CD that was a jazzy number with piano, drums and horns. I had one speaker connected to the "good" wire and the other connected to the "bad" wire. We played the song through one speaker and then the other by simply unplugging them. First one then the other then we repeated. There were about 15 people in the room listening intently to the differences expecting minor or subtle differences (including me- who before this- would have bet there wouldn't have been a difference.)

EVERYONE in the room picked the correct speaker that had the good wire. We had some discussion about how it could have been just the smaller gauge of the "bad" wire, but considering we really weren't pushing the SP3 (we were only running 20 watts a channel or so) and, we were only going about 4 feet, I wouldn't think gauge would have come into play.... but what do I know. Adam Reiter took the helm for a bit and explained some things about skin effect and other technical stuff. There was no mistaking the difference between the two. No matter how you spliced it (pun intended) the Cobalt Cable was CLEARLY better.

Will I go and spend $500 a foot for fancy cryogenically frozen jewel encrusted cable? No. But when I added up what it would have cost me to build these cables myself including the wire, connectors, flex sleeve etc, it didn't seem like I was spending that much more for pre-made cables. In fact, I ordered a set for my HT system's front three.

Give a demo a try for yourself in your own environment. I think you'll be as surprised as I was...... and happy that you've spent money on an upgrade that you could actually hear.

Mike Hawker

Here is a link to the AV123 Forum and the thread where Mike also provided pictures, check it out!

Thanks again Mike, great job!

HD DVD vs. Blu-ray

I'd like to thank both Sony and Toshiba for putting the consumer between a rock and a hard place. Once again...

Apparently Sony has completely forgotten what kind of back lash they received during the VHS/Beta format wars. Why they chose not to work with others in their industry to sort it out before hand is beyond me. Yah I know its about money and gobbling up market share with proprietary technology but what happened to companies thinking about the consumer first and innovating around that?

Ok, I know that's a philosophical question, in my head I know why, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

I've had a chance to use both the new players and thought I'd share a few thoughts, I'll try not to seem biased but I'll confess Sony=evil empire in my opinion.

Samsung is the first (at this time) manufacturer to release a Blu-ray player. Toshiba is the HD DVD offering. While the Blu-ray device certainly looks slick, the controller is a farce. Oh, by the way it costs $1000.00. Toshiba's HD DVD player is a beast, I mean its huge when compared to the Blu ray device looks ugly, again the controller is terrible but costs $500.00. Yup, HD DVD is half the price of Blu-ray.

I won't go into a lot of detail to why that is, suffice it to say, the blu-ray technology required new tooling so the consumer flips the bill. HD DVD uses the same coating technology as DVD so their production costs are much less.

Looks: Advantage Blu-ray
Price: Advantage HD DVD

What any consumer is going to ask themselves is... Why do I need these new players? What will it do better than my $150.00 DVD player? Both camps will say... Hi-Def picture quality. That statement is both true and false, I'll explain.

Blu-ray (currently) is using the older MPEG 2 formatting, while HD DVD, thanks to Microsoft is using the more advanced VC 1 formatting. Basically this translates into much better picture quality with HD DVD vs. Blu-ray. Which is THE reason any sane person would spend 500+ dollars (not to mention re-buy the movies which are about $10 more than DVD).

Sony and company have said the issue will eventually be corrected, um ok, so how does that help consumers now? I'll say this, when I watched a few movies on the Blu-ray, there were certain instances where the picture quality was worse than DVD. That's a tough pill to swallow if I just dumped 1k on a hi-def player.

Performance: Advantage HD DVD

At the moment Blu-ray seems to have more backers in Hollywood, but with launch delays, high cost players, production issues with the new layer/coating technology I suspect that will change. Oddly enough, the difference in content offerings could still push someone into the more expensive, under-performing Blu-ray player.

Content: Advantage Blu-ray (This is a very subjective rating as certain movies announced for HD DVD might swing "on the fence" consumers. LOTR trilogy, Matrix and such have announced for HD DVD, etc. This is a moving target though.)

Storage capacity is really THE ONLY selling point for Blu-ray as their discs can hold about 20gigs more data. When I see that I'm like, so what, 30gigs is more than enough right now. I know I'm letting my bias show here but an extra $500.00 for 20gigs more disc storage? No thanks.

Disc Storage capacity: Advantage Blu-ray

Blu-ray may have more advantages on paper, but HD DVD has the advantages that actually count. Price/Performance. If I sound bitter, I am. I really hate the thought of having to make this choice and I know it's not going to stop at movie/player choices. Soon we will have to make hand held camcorder choices too. It's a path we've been down before and no matter what happens the end result is going to be a certain customer base left twisting in the wind.

iPod meet xPod

Microsoft is mulling over an "xPod"?! Why don't these two companies just get it over with and merge already? I know what you're thinking; such an event would tear open a 4th dimension ushering in an era of winged pigs and wood nymphs. Maybe, but is that a bad thing? Me; I've always had a soft spot for wood nymphs.

BusinessWeek discusses Microsoft’s intention to chip away at Apples whopping 70% market share in portal digital media devices. The "xPod" would not only play music & video but games that incidentally would be available on the Xbox 360. Insider information also indicates a program that would allow iPod users to convert all iTunes mp3 files they have purchased over to the "xPod" format (WMA) for free, with purchase of a new “xPod” of course. That’s a pretty good incentive but at the moment is just speculation as MS has yet to officially announce the product.

In my experience this kind of stuff is leaked for a reason...free press and a bit of internet hype. Only time will tell, my guess is an official announcement is soon to follow, just in time for the holiday season.

What's your take on a possible "xPod"? Feel free to add your comments.

Studios Give Nod to Early Adopters on High-Definition Discs

Joining MGM, Fox, Buena Vista, and Paramount, Universal has announced that they will not engage the "Image Constraint Token" (ICT) on their titles for the next-generation high-definition disc format in their initial release.
The function of the ICT is to force non-encrypted video connections (e.g. component video) to be down-converted to 960 x 540 pixels instead of the full resolution of the disc (e.g. 1080p). Under this scenario, only HDCP-Equipped HDMI (or DVI) Connections would transfer the film at full resolution.

This move was obviously done to not completely enrage the owners of the millions of HDTV sets which lack HDCP HDMI/DVI inputs (currently estimated to be between seven million and eight million in the US). Since almost all HDTV's sold pre-2005 fall into this category, this is a large group of early adopters, who are traditionally the torch-bearers of any new technology, to aggravate.

However, this policy is not guaranteed in perpetuity. It is Universal's (or any other studio for that matter) prerogative to re-enable ICT at any time. Enabling this feature has always seemed like a silly policy (much like the broadcast flag in digital tv signals), but the feature is out there to be enabled by the content provider at any time.

To further complicate things, there are two sides at play here too, each jockeying for position. On one side, you have the backer's of the Blu-Ray format, developed by Sony, which include MGM (Sony), Fox, Buena Vista, Disney, and Paramount. On the other side, you have the Toshiba developed format, HD-DVD. Backers of HD-DVD include Warner Bros. (technically backing both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray), New Line Cinema, and Universal Pictures.....

For the full version go to Cobalt Cable.

Summer Sale 2006!

For the first time in 6 years, Cobalt Cable is running a sale during the summer season (June 13th-Sept 3rd 2006). Now is an ideal time to attack those Home Theater & Audio projects! It really doesn't matter what you need to do, we've got any cabling issue covered. The sale also gives you the flexibility to make your buying decisions in small increments so you get exactly what you need when you need it.

Visit http://www.cobaltcable.com/ for more details regarding the sale and other products. Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Net neutrality act: Regulation of the Internet

We all knew it was coming, congress is set to amend/rewrite the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The immediate reaction from all us net geeks when this topic raises its ugly head is to collectively say... Heck no!

Consider what is happening; Verizon, AT&T and others are mulling over new fees for service on their networks and could "prioritize" content based on their own definitions. Such as streaming video or their "preferred" content. What they really mean is, pay them X amount and *poof* you are now preferred content. The internet would then be "filtered" depending on which provider you use. Sounds bad right? Yah it's bad.

Certain providers are claiming the worry over content freedom to be a non-issue. They argue that without the ability to charge more they won't be able to afford expansion of broadband networks. It all stinks! Nothing other than a Washington lobbyists attempt to garner government funding for additional infrastructure.

While part of me hates that this is being considered, the fact is, there are but a few telecom companies that support and build internet infrastructure. In this context, some kind of regulation is needed to protect everyone. Being at the mercy of the FCC however is a topic for another day.

For those that love boring government docs here is the link to new bill....http://i.n.com.com/pdf/ne/2006/comm_bill.pdf