Virgin Media Community

[apcyberax]

i donno how i survived in the days i could dial into the internet. Share files on a floppy and turn on the TV at 11pm and get loads of bad stuff.

OH WAIT i think its called parenting.

[BinghamBloke]

As many others have stated if we were not trying to be good parents we wouldn't care about this as much as we do!
The kids tablets have YouTube Kids on them for a reason.
The fact 9 times out of 10 they wake before we do (even on work days) and they can be on the tv without parent supervision is something I am happy about as there is nothing they can access at the 6am sort of time no matter what channel they go to as the others are pin protected that I don't have an issue with.
Go to 198 or the app and boom a world of stuff I wouldn't let them access usually.
It's a joke that so many of us have reported this and still no change.

[BahnStormer]

Channels and playback can be restricted (pin locked) quite easily, it's the apps that SHOULD all be able to be restricted in the same way (either PIN-locked or blocked), but there's only two random apps that are available in the list...

Yes, it's called parenting and we're trying to do it properly: At the moment decent parents are having to lock away the TiVo remotes to ensure their children's online safety... but rather than rely on doing this every day, I'm switching for a set top box that allows me to control things as soon as my current contract expires.

[BahnStormer]

So basically if a company pays Virgin enough, they'll show any content they want to your kids... great company policy!

I don't know why this is marked as resolved, the only solution I've heard is that we have to ditch the Virgin TiVo and get a proper open platform that allows us to control the apps....

The irony that most of what I'm looking at is based on the Google-provided Android platform... where they allow you to enforce child profiles with blocked YouTube... exactly what I have setup on their Android tablets (no YouTube at all).... it's like Google are paying Virgin to make TiVo unsuitable for young families and encourage them to turn to Google TV devices... I can't fault Google's logic (get 'em while they're young), but ridiculous that Virgin would do such an irresponsible thing for a few extra quid ... beggars belief.... at the moment I'm stopping my kids before they get there (again), but should I start taking photo's of my 4yr old and 6yr old daughters watching the the creepy content that Virign is effectively allowing to be pumped into our homes on a completely uncontrollable platform and start sending those to media outlets - BBC and SkyNews would have a field day with this the next time they're running an online safety feature!!

Tablets have strictly controlled profiles, phones have finger-print scanners, computers are all password protected and tightly controlled, but hey, get TiVo and let anybody watch anything they can find on YouTube....

[BahnStormer]

@biker2day It's not a question of them investing in anything - the feature we're asking for already exists on our TiVo boxes... but Virgin won't let it be applied on certain apps.

[EMoore]

Just adding my voice to that of other parents. Virgin you are facilitating YouTube broadcasting totally unacceptable content at children.

Sort it please.

[martinseal1987]

You would ground your kids for a month for putting on the TV without permission, and then have the nerve to tell someone off for asking for more control over a service?

[BahnStormer]

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@jb66 wrote:

You can lock youtube so your kids cant use it

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This answer is just plain wrong!!

You answer is misleading to the point that some parents may think that having TiVo in a home with young families is appropriate.

There is a problem with YouTube (and numerous other apps) on TiVo: Virgin have blocked core apps from being uninstalled, disabled or pin-locked.

YouTube has made a token effort of having content filtering, but none of their content is tagged, so this is worse than meaningless as it is complete ineffective, but dupes people into an illusion of safety - currently there are ZERO working parental controls on TiVo apps for all but two of them - no uninstall, no disable, no pin-lock, no working content filtering.... nothing.

[BahnStormer]

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@Josh_RW wrote:

You can restrict content within the YouTube app by opening the app, selecting Settings and then scroll across to Restricted mode.

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incorrect - please stop advising people that this will somehow make their TiVo safe for families: you can't block inappropriate content with content filtering... this feature just implies that you can.... but it relies on the people posting weird, creepy, lewd home videos to flag their content restrictions on their vdeos.... which apparently none of the most depraved ones do! I'd post pictures of what I found my six year old watching (with content filtering enabled), except I'd probably get barred from the forum for posting lewd and inappropriate content... perverse on so many levels.

[BahnStormer]

The closest to a working solution where we keep TiVo is to lock the remotes away and control the TiVo via the phone apps... but that's made TiVo such a laggy pain to use that we're getting rid of it as soon as the current "Big Kahuna VIP" (?) bundle expires...

If you're looking at alternatives, a word of warning - Google/YouTube have bought off a lot of other suppliers too as I've been researching this and it is a problem for NowTV (not as bad - you can uninstall, but there's no restrictions on re-installing)....  https://community.nowtv.com/t5/NOW-TV-Smart-Box/I-want-to-remove-the-YouTube-app-off-the-box/td-p/43...

Roku seems to allow proper parental controls, but based on previous experience, I found they were pretty loathsome little devices the rest of the time...

Top of my list of viable options are those cheap little Android TV boxes that I've started having to use for Prime Video... unfortunately, most mandate YouTube too (Android = Google = YouTube) and the premium TV providers also block HDMI output from those boxes, however Google have already been through the backlash against some of their core apps (like YouTube) and allow you to setup proper profiles for kids, etc, where you can easily block unwanted apps (and the app-store)....

The devices aren't as slick as TiVo and you will miss out on some channels, but there's still TONS of content: Premier Sports and all the Freeview channels are fine (ITV hub, 4OD, demand5, BBC iPlayer) as well as Netflix and obviously Amazon Prime Video.... the more I'm using it, the more I'm realising it could replace my TiVo. 

The only missing items would be Virgin Media TV Go / SkyGo as I think they block HDMI output to make it slightly slower for pirates to re-broadcast their content.. there's very easy ways around it, and it's not illegal provided you're only using the TV content for your own viewing (NOT re-broadcasting - duh!), but I won't go into the details of how to do that as I'm sure it's against the forum rules...

I'm just going to stay with my stock Android box for a while with proper parental controls that allow me to block unwanted apps and I'll have Amazon Prime on the same device too... roll on the renewal date, when I'll switch to nothing but that.