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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works dot com

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Speaker 1: where smart Happens. I am Marshall Brain with today's question,

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Speaker 1: what does a V chip really do and how does

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Speaker 1: it work? As of all new television sets sold in

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Speaker 1: the United States have to contain a V chip. The

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Speaker 1: V stands for viewer control and the goal of the

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Speaker 1: chip is to allow parents to choose the level of

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Speaker 1: TV programming that will be allowed into the home. The

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Speaker 1: idea behind a V chip is simple. TV shows have

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Speaker 1: a signal embedded into them that gives the show a rating,

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Speaker 1: and the chip can detect these ratings. The ratings that

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Speaker 1: the FCC has settled on look like this. T V

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Speaker 1: Y is for all children. All children can watch because

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Speaker 1: it has zero violence and zero sexual content. TV Y

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Speaker 1: seven for all children seven and over. T V G

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Speaker 1: is for general audiences. There's no sex, violence, or inappropriate language.

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Speaker 1: TV PG is parental guidance suggested. TV fourteen is suitable

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Speaker 1: only for people over fourteen. There's some sex and violence.

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Speaker 1: And then t V M A is suitable only for

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Speaker 1: mature audiences and it can contain just about anything. A

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Speaker 1: parent can program the TV with a rating and the

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Speaker 1: TV will block all shows above that rating. So if

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Speaker 1: apparent programs in the TV Y seven rating, the TV

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Speaker 1: will allow only shows rated at TV Y or t

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Speaker 1: V y seven, but it will block all other shows.

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Speaker 1: How does your TV see the rating of a show?

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Speaker 1: The ratings are encoded in what's called the line twenty

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Speaker 1: one data area. All sorts of things go inside this

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Speaker 1: data area, such as closed captioning information and the time

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Speaker 1: of day, as well as the ratings information. It's basically

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Speaker 1: hidden in a part of the TV signal that doesn't

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Speaker 1: show up on the screen. The V chips simply decodes

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Speaker 1: the line twenty one data uh, compares it with the

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Speaker 1: parents allowed rating that they've programmed into the chip, and

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Speaker 1: then either blocks the signal or lets it through. Do

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Speaker 1: you have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so,

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Speaker 1: please send me an email at podcast at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. For more on this and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other topics, go to how stuff works dot com.