As information technology and entertainment intertwine, cultural standards of decency and morality are quickly eroding to pave the way for a freedom of expression that is increasingly difficult to stem on television and the silver screen. Proponents of personal freedom argue that one can choose what to and what not to watch.

But parents who juggle family, home and work duties find it harder and harder to screen what their children see. Though advances in VCRs and now DVD technology provide home entertainment that parents can better monitor, it’s still difficult to shield children when a seemingly decent show or movie suddenly spouts foul language, violence or a sexual scene.

Yet while technology has created a culture increasingly nonplussed by expletives or suggestive scenes, at the same time it has provided more safeguards for parents to monitor what their families see. And DVD players – which are the fastest-growing consumer-electronic device ever (according to Consumer Reports) – are the latest gadgets to offer parental controls.

On the simplest level, DVD parental controls let parents “lock out” specific functions of the entire player; certain DVD players let you lock out films by their rating code,” according to www.consumerreports.org. But the system of parental controls goes far beyond that.

There is a lot of information on how parental controls work, but few web sites or publications properly detail which DVD players offer the best in parental controls. We will detail what may be the best DVD players for parents to own, and which players support PAL (a system with different specifications used by a variety of other countries) as well as NTSC (which is the type of system used in the United States) DVDs or videos.

DVD players and parental controls:

DVD players with parental controls can be set to a specific movie rating (G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17,) and will lock out DVDs with a rating above the set level. These players often allow parents to create a password so their set ratings cannot be changed. Most players offer this generic type of control, as it is the easiest to manufacture and requires little input from movie houses that produce DVD discs.

Some DVD players also offer controls encoded with variable ratings. If a DVD movie offers various versions, the player will skip over objectionable scenes or substitute them with other ones depending on the parental level chosen. This kind of control is less prevalent because manufactures find it costly and time-consuming to produce, says Peter Schworm, a freelance writer who had written extensively about parental controls.

The few players that do offer variable ratings control are often unused because hardly any movie studios offer discs with multiple versions. “Studios must shoot extra footage, record additional audio, edit new sequences, create branch points, and synchronize the soundtrack for the alternate sequences,” says Schworm.

“With longer films, the added material leaves insufficient room for both the wide and standard-screen versions without lowering the film quality through greater compression,” he adds. Multi-ratings discs include Kalifornia, Crash, Damage, Poison Ivy and Species II, according to DVD Demystified author Jim Taylor's very useful DVD FAQ (http://www.dvddemystfied.com/).

Some discs offer multi-story branching with a director’s cut or special edition. These versions often include extra scenes that may be objectionable and can be locked out through parental controls. Such discs include Stargate SE, The Abyss, Independence Day and Terminator 2 SE (2000 release). More such discs are listed on www.multipathmovies.com.

Although DVD players and DVDs themselves may not always provide enough parental control, there are other options. “TV Guardian” is a small black box that filters out profanity by scanning the closed-caption signal for vulgarities and substitutes them with other words. Then there is “Curse Free TV”, a device that attaches between the DVD player and TV to again filter out obscenities.

And Cine-Bit Productions offers downloadable DVD software that permits viewers to mute or skip certain scenes based on ratings levels encoded on DVD discs. That may be your best bet – but then you’ll have to watch your DVDs on your computer instead of a nice large TV screen.

DVD players with worldwide standards:

So are you thoroughly confused by the different types of parental controls?  Lets add worldwide standards to the mix. Ideally the best DVD players are ones with good parental controls that support DVDs produced in the United States and abroad. Then you can buy discs in any country.

There are two television systems: NTSC, used in the United States, and PAL, used by most other countries. Therefore there are NTSC DVDs and PAL DVDs. But there are also Video Compact Discs (VCD), which are basically CDs with moving pictures and sounds – better quality than videotape but worse than a DVD. About two-thirds of DVD players support VCDs, according to Taylor’s DVD FAQ web site.

VCDs have a larger pixel resolution than DVDs. DVD players deal with the difference by cutting off extra lines or adding blank lines to the picture. Panasonic and RCA NTSC DVD players cut off 17 percent off the bottom when playing VCDs. Sony NTSC players reconfigures the picture to fit all of the pixels.

Nearly all NTSC DVD players cannot play PAL discs. In our research, we couldn’t find any players that do support PAL DVDs to recommend. But a small number can convert PAL discs to an NTSC format, including Apex and SMC. External converter boxes are another option, such as the Emerson EVC1595 ($350). Tenlab (www.tenlab.com) and Snell and Wilcox (www.snellwilcox.com) also offer high-quality converters.

NTSC discs (with Dolby Digital audio) play on more than 95 percent of PAL DVD players. Your best bet is to buy a system that supports VCDs, which are abundant in other countries or go abroad and buy a PAL DVD player.

The recommendations:  

By reading up on a wide variety of DVD manufacturers and by scanning the recommendations of www.consumerreports.org, we’ve created a list of five DVD players all with parental controls and some worldwide standards that you may want to consider.

1. Sony DVP NC650V: $399, 5-disc changer, offers variable ratings controls and supports CDs, VCDs, CD-R, DVDR, CD-RW and SACD.
2. Sony DVP NC600: $249.99, 5-disc changer, offers basic parental controls and supports CDs, VCDs, CD-R and CD-RW
3. Samsung DVD C601: $199.33, 5-disc changer, offers basic parental controls and supports CDs and VCDs.
4. Panasonic DVD CV51: $241.92, 5-disc changer, offers basic parental controls and supports CDs, VCDs, CDR, CD-RW and MP3.
5. Toshiba SD 3755: $221, 5-disc changer, offers basic parental controls and supports CDs, VCDs, CD-R, DVD-R, CD-RW and MP3.