Two for a More Refined V-Chip

Partners Som and Hoffman Say Their Software Is a Precision TV Censor

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff

The problem with the V-chip, say Dilip Som and Sidney Hoffman, isn't whether the new television technology will actually work. It's whether it will work enough.

When it arrives sometime next year in new TV sets, the V-chip will give parents a new and potentially revolutionary device to block out programs they don't want their children to see. Through simple on-screen prompts, parents will be able to set the V-chip to automatically "recognize" and block programs that carry an undesirable rating.

Broadcast and cable companies have already started putting ratings on their shows -- "TV-G," "TV-PG," "TV-MA," etc.; within a few months, the TV industry will electronically embed these ratings into broadcast and cable signals so that the V-chips can go into operation.

Fine as far as it goes, say Som and Hoffman, but they suggest it doesn't go far enough.

The two men, longtime partners in a Rockville company that makes software for closed-captioning TV programs, have developed new software that they say would make the V-chip a surgical tool, rather than a sledgehammer.

The key problem with the V-chip, they say, is that the technology works on an all-or-nothing basis: It either prevents transmission of an entire program or it lets the whole show through.

Som and Hoffman's creation would allow broadcasters to insert multiple ratings into a show, enabling the V-chip to filter out racy or violent material but leave unexceptional portions of a show alone. The rating could change to reflect exactly what's on screen in a particular scene.

"We think this allows for a much greater degree of precision," says Hoffman, 48, a genial former New Yorker. "It could affect millions of viewers."

A program's first six minutes might be rated TV-G, followed by a 25-second scene that is worthy of a TV-MA rating (for mature viewers), followed by two more minutes of TV-G-rated fare.

Normally, a V-chip set to block programs rated TV-MA would block the entire program; with the new software, the set would go dark only for the 25-second scene.

For the TV industry, the implications of this could be profound, says Som, a native of Calcutta who attended Yeshiva University in New York along the way to receiving his PhD. "It could mean that programmers could create their shows so that they don't [get zapped by the V-chip] at the start, or right before and after a commercial," he said. "Advertisers wouldn't lose viewers."

Som and Hoffman have named their creation the CPC-V, after their firm, Computer Prompting & Captioning Co., which has been making software used in creating closed captions for 13 years.

Creating the V-chip software was a natural line extension for the company because the electronic ratings read by the V-chip are encoded in the same portion of the TV signal that carries closed captions.

In fact, the V-chip encoding feature was something of an afterthought for Som, who originally set out to develop software that allows TV programmers to encode the TV signal so that viewers can, with the click of a remote, call up such information as a program's name, its length, station identification, the time of day and other information.

Despite the high hopes of its creators, the CPC-V, which sells for $995, may not necessarily be something either the TV industry or TV viewers are clamoring for.

Martin Franks, senior vice president of CBS, says it's hard enough just to assign one rating for each of the programs his network airs each year; figuring out multiple ratings for all of the 1,100 hours of primetime shows aired annually would be difficult if not impossible, he says.

The CPC-V, says Franks, "takes a [rating] system that is already complex and criticized for its inconsistency . . . and makes it even more complex. It sounds like nifty technology, but making it work in the real world could be hard to do." Adds Franks, "Before we start tinkering too much more, I'd like to see if the [rating] system we have now a) works, and b) if it's going to be used by viewers."

David Moulton, the chief of staff for Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), the primary author of the 1996 law that requires TV set manufacturers to include V-chips in their products, says viewers might have a problem watching programs that go on and off the air. The CPC-V, he says, could create a "Swiss cheese" problem: Some programs could have holes in them.

"I think that even a child is likely to react negatively to any substantial piece of a show being removed while substantial parts are still there," said Moulton. "Parents might think their TVs are broken or they're getting a bad transmission. My guess is that people would rather switch to a program that's not chopped up than one that is."

To that, Hoffman shrugs. "We're providing a tool," he says. "You can buy a hammer and knock someone in the head with it or you can build a house with it. America is about choice. There's a need for a tool like this. And we're saying, 'Here's the tool.' "

How It Would Work

Computer Prompting and Captioning of Rockville has created software that will work with the v-chip to allow objectionable segments of shows to be blocked out. Here's an example, using an episode of "Married With Children."