An NFC movie library for my kids
simplyexplained.com
simplyexplained.com
He's not fighting over the remote and he has agency. And he's certainly not stumbling his way through YouTube on a tablet. No ads. Very nice for him. It's not yet necessary to track his usage. But I'm well prepared for it.
Home Assistant works very well for these cases. I'm sad that Netflix&Co. do not publicize their urls/intents/etc. for smart TVs. I'd be happy to call an episode directly.
This setup therefore needs to run through my own media server and that's why I sometimes have to resort to pirate-y means, even though I have licenses to watch it.
It's easy enough to measure the accumulated script runtime and disable the reader once a daily allowance has been reached. Though I am not a fan of an allowance like that.
Nevertheless, tracking the script runtime is easy enough. It's a family TV, but a private TV can easily be tracked via power consumption. Then you can track any usage and help managing consumption.
There is also an NFC tag that will turn off all the lights and turn on a disco ball :-).
I haven't really tried this myself, but this Stack Overflow question seems to have found a solution[0]. Since you're already using Home Assistant, you might want to check out the Google Cast integration[1] although Netflix doesn't currently seem to have a documented solution.
[0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18217559/launching-andro...
I'm curious how you track that? I don't have HA connected to plex yet, but I will. I suppose there might be an event when the 'track' changes?
That is an intentional marketing move. If you bypass the loading screen, you're also bypassing advertising for their content.
It's in Netflix's interest for you to be aware of their new releases or suggestions. They want you to see the loading screen.
The last thing they want is for you to start thinking that paying them is no longer worth the value.
I don’t know If I am becoming old fashioned, but I feel things were simpler when I was a kid, we had DVD player and we would come over to a friends house and watch a movie. We even found someone’s porn collection!
I feel this issue is endemic through all of society - you have to spend more and more of your IQ points figuring out basic shit, and eventually it’s gets too much and you have no IQ points left to figure out big questions in life
My kids learned how to navigate Apple TV and the Apple TV remote at age 3 to go to Infuse or PBS kids app. And I tell them to turn off the TV after x episode of y time limit, and they know how to do that.
Asking a 3 year old to develop that mental faculty just because we are a new generation learning new things feels incorrect.
If they are useful, and's an improvement, sure
But we just enshittified an experience that used to be good, and now have to ‘learn’ to cope with it
I specifically recall how annoying it was to change the input on a TV because for some reason, manufacturers didn’t put that button on TVs or all remotes.
If my 3 year olds can learn to navigate tvOS to the right app or infuse library and pick the Bluey episode they want, I feel like it’s a pretty good sign of things not being shitty.
I can't quite articulate why this feels like an improvement to me. Maybe it's because I have experienced decision paralysis on streaming services so many times.
Tons of DVD collections being given away for almost nothing on FB marketplace right now, too.
> I can't quite articulate why this feels like an improvement to me. Maybe it's because I have experienced decision paralysis on streaming services so many times.
Amazon recently changed their Android TV app such that it auto-plays previews if you leave a title selected for more than a few seconds. I hate this feature and it gives me both decision paralysis and anxiety over finding something interesting to watch before the preview starts. I'd sooner turn the TV off than deal with that. If the setting for this can be changed, it is not available in the app itself.
If there are 5 choices available, the effort to decide on one is low as the contrast between choices is high … and holding all options in memory is easy.
If there are 1,000 choices, the effort is high and the contrast is low … and you can't hold them all in memory, so there's always _something_ right around the bend that _might_ be the perfect thing.
I'm not sure that watching a movie on a streaming service requires more IQ points than watching it on a DVD.
Worst-case DVD experience: Step 1. Unbox TV and DVD Player Step 2. Plug scart cable from DVD player into TV. Step 3. Connect TV and DVD player to power, insert batteries in remotes. Step 4. Turn on DVD Player, TV, press "Source" a few times, the DVD player shows something. Step 5. Gander at some DVDs, decide which to watch. Step 6. Press Eject Step 7. Insert DVD Step 8. Press Eject Step 9. Press Play.
Now, assuming that electricity is provided, care to write down how to netflix? From the beginning, so we need to start by unboxing our very first computer, setting it up to the point where we can connect to the internet, also, we need an internet connection, oh, and some way to order that, so a phone.. Now, there will be a few steps before we reach to the point where we can create an email account, needed to even register for the streaming service.. Oh, something about credit cards too, and passwords for stuff?
Sure, you will think this is absurd, because all that stuff is "already in place" yeah, it is, for us, we set it up bit by bit, it's an enormous amount of infrastructure and different, disconnected concepts and services that is now REQUIRED before you can watch a movie..
I'll bet I can teach most 4 year olds to go from "empty living room with a power socket" to "watching dvd movies". You'll have a hard time convincing me you can teach them to go from empty living room with a power socket, to watching netflix before their next birthday or two :)
Reminded me of Yoto, an internet radio style thing for kids that uses little NFC cards.
Techmoan reviewed it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mQECKOkkqk
Less directly was Tonies, an audio player for kids that uses NFC on Skyrim style figures to trigger stories.
Techmoan did a video on that too (it’s how I know about both): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9RbMMJRxzw
Which was also forked for ESP32 and has its own community https://github.com/biologist79/ESPuino
My daughter knows that the Yoto is in charge of when she needs to stay in bed or when she can walk around. "When the light is red, stay in bed."
The app is thoughfully made with exactly the sort of features you'd want (alarms, separate volume limits for day/night, night light with changeable colours, morning alarm, bed/wake colours so the kids know when they should be asleep/awake; though my kids don't pay any attention to it, etc). Once you've scanned a card you own, you can activate it from your mobile app so when you're travelling you don't have to take all of the cards with you and risk losing them (though you do need to have WiFi for the Yoto to control it that way; I use my phone hotspot when we're places with no WiFi).
They also have a couple of radio stations, fun educational one which is different every day, like a radio station, and a music one, which switches to bedtime music after bed time and plays curated bedtime lullabies and the sort of things you'd expect for sleep music for children.
There's loads of educational cards (my 4yo loves the "adventures" series with "missy" where they explore different things about the world; under the sea, space, rainforests, etc), there's stories, and there's music, there's also a decent second-hand marketplace around here on Gumtree where people sell the cards their children have grown out of, though they do hold much of their value.
The ability to record your own cards is also a huge win; they give you (I believe) 500MB of storage for each card you buy (at ~£2 each), and you can record your own readings of things, or upload mp3s (we've made some Yoto music cards for CDs we own but they don't make cards for).
We take them with us when we travel, but intend to buy the Yoto Minis which are much more portable for that purpose.
The boards are built into boxes, toys (from fire engines to plush) and whatever sparks imagination. https://discourse.voss.earth/t/tonuino-gehaeuse-galerie/786/...
Most of the community speaks German, but there is also an English section https://discourse.voss.earth/c/international/11
The source code is in English and the schematics language independent. https://github.com/tonuino/TonUINO-TNG
Here is my build that fits into a wooden police bus. The figures put on the driver seat start the music: https://github.com/Bronkoknorb/hermibox
Very fun to build, highly customizable and good for both beginner plug n play options. I enjoyed taking the old Fisher Price music box record player apart and turning it into an NFC based record player.
Lots of other great examples in the yearly showcase threads
https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-Jukebox-RFID/discussions/211...
For tinkering, there's an unofficial API (WIP)[0] to interact with the player, integration with Home Assistant[1], and Yoto's sample app[2].
[0]: https://github.com/cdnninja/yoto_api
My youngest, at 16, still loves the Tonie Box. She uploads random stuff to their web portal and plays it quietly at night. Her sister, in the top bunk, had a string / pulley connected to the figurine so that she could restart the music from her bed by lifting it just a little bit and putting it back down.
I was staggered when I saw your build cost list - I know ESPs are in the realm of "Cheap AF" but all of those NFC cards also for $9?! This is one of the few reasons I would shop Alibaba! We're talking around $15 total for the full NFC setup if you can print/rig yourself a case! (yes, of course, another $X for screens, sound etc)
I have run into such a crazy amount of cool hacky kid tech in the past couple of days for some reason (this and Makey Makey), and am so lucky to have done so. I can't wait to outfit my kids with this, it is going to blow their minds.
I want to hook it up to Jellyfish because I feel Plex is total marketing trash these days but as soon as I can get time I am all over this.
Plus, to fathom a three-year-old-destroyer-of-property handling your blu-ray disc collection, I shudder! They are great frisbees, and coasters, and etc.
If I even still owned blu-rays I might consider ripping them and then converting to this just to avoid the above mentioned pain.
My favorite example was the kids using dvds as roller skates to slide around the room.
They leave the last disc laying on the TV cabinet. It never, ever goes back in the box. I found three stacked at one point, and I think one disc just outright disappeared and we had to get a new one. It wasn’t until the discs started skipping that the kids even thought about taking care of them.
Kids, little ones especially, are quite rough on discs. That's if they even make it back into the case!
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv/discussions/3...
94 The Good Dinosaur
92 Trolls
98 Wall-E
88 The Lion King
103 Moana
81 Toy Story
91 Trolls World Tour
95 Inside Out
103 Frozen II
95 A Bug's Life
So...if one of them wants to watch The Lion King or Toy Story they have to split it over at least 3 viewing sessions split over at least 2 days? And for anything else on that list they need to split it over at least 4 viewing sessions?
That seems overly restrictive. Yes, limiting kid's TV time is probably a good idea, but would it really hurt to have some flexibility so that they can finish a movie in one session? Maybe let them bank sessions, so they can say skip morning TV for 3 days, and apply that time to the 4th day's evening to get a slot for a whole movie.
We stick to the 2x30 minutes rule for 90% of the time but we do make occasional exceptions like when they're ill.
Might change when they get older though.
It's not a challenge to keep a limit on screen time at this age.
Good for you.
It is, however, a challenge for us.
If all your friends have the same rules as you, then great. If all your friends have no rules at all, you are a tyrant, and your child will be at his friends places as much as possible.
> Between certain hours, we allow them to watch TV. They can watch any movie they like. They can even switch between movies. But the timeframe is fixed. They can watch a good chunk of one movie, or they can watch a tiny bit of 10 different movies. It's completely up to them.
I would have thought it's much less. What would be an equivalent restriction on the phone/tablet/more actively engaging devices?
We are a minority.
And if you peer over and look at what they're browsing, it's mostly junk, social media videos or just mindless scrolling.
It's actually healthier for the brain to be bored in such moments.
It's apparently also a hangout spot for (self-awarded) gold star internet parents who love the smell of their own farts and think anyone else wants to smell them.
In general, probably not. My point was that in the specific case of movies, where even movies designed for children usually run at least 80+ minutes, maybe an exception should be made so that the kid can watch the whole movie in one session if they want to and have the patience and attention span to do so.
You can still limit the average to an hour a day. They just have to mix shorter content with movies to keep the average down.
Breaking off movies after an hour is going to put the break around the act II low point in most children's movies. If the kid got invested in the characters and story that's a terrible place to make them stop until tomorrow.
We don't have a set amount of allowed TV time for her, but she typically watches around 15-20 minutes of TV and then gets up and does something else.
The only real rule we have around it is that TV (unlike music) is not a background sound. If you're done watching something, you have to turn it off, not just let it play forever.
My kids are 3 and 2, and they don't watch TV like adults. They watch a bit of movie, get up, walk around, do something else, come back, and watch a bit of another movie or even switch to a TV show. It's weird!
I like your idea about flexibility, but they're too young right now. Maybe we'll introduce your "bank" concept when they get older or increase the "TV budget". But for now we stick to 2x 30 minutes.
I can't imagine having a 3yo watching TV 1 hour a day, especially the movies shown on this video.
That being said, to focus on the technical project, that's very cool!
Indeed they are. I have a five year old who is now old enough to choose his own films and series from a selection curated by us. A system like this would be fine for children of his age.
But 2 and 3? They are too young to choose their own media at all. Not because they can't, but because they can't judge the impact. For toddlers you really want to be the one in control about what they watch (and that horrible Bing can die in a tragic bunny bonfire).
The Lion King, Wall-E? That's just overloading them at that age (and both are rated 6+ in the Netherlands). You can start with those at 5 or so depending on the child, or later if you've noticed them reacting too intensely to films rated 6+. For now? Stick with shorts suitable for their age, and move on to films (like Ghibli's Ponyo) at 4 or 5 as a special treat.
Autonomy is all fine and well, but screens have an enormous impact on developing children. This is a really cool project, but you might want to reflect on how their brains are developing and what you as a parent can do to guide them.
It is unique. There is no guarantee that this would work in any other language unless you found two voice actors with the same level of natural skill and collaboration (I'm sure it must have been tried). You can't write out the dialogue in Czech, translate it, and have it dubbed in various languages; the ad-libbing seems essential, and I'm sure any attempt to replicate this would fail if you didn't get two actors who not only completely grok the show and its protagonists, but also know how to apply the local tropes of this type of character correctly.
But it works. There are few countries where Pat & Mat are as popular as the Netherlands. In fact, it's probably only Czechia itself which tops that. It's not that Pat & Mat were lacking anything — the silent shorts are brilliant in their own right — but the Dutch dub adds another layer of humour which so completely matches the feel of the characters in the show that it doesn't detract at any point. A lot of Dutch don't even know that it is only here where a dub is used, and that the affable dialogue added was never intended!
The only weird and regrettable thing (for a variation of a Czech show) is that you have to understand spoken Dutch to get it.
My point is that these things are subjective. I get this unsolicited advice is coming from a good place but it's just your random opinion. Let's leave the parenting up to the parent.
Not that weird I think... my 5 year old does exactly this. He cant sit through a full movie. My 7 year old also had that issue but now she can.
there is a round robin process for who gets to pick from the catalogue and if there is no amicable consensus, we split or override.
30mins is about the attention span of a kid and you can see them get anxious and distracted after that, most of the time.
It’s digital-only but I have folders of records on my phone Home Screen. They’re shortcuts that play the album, and the album art is the icon.
This feels like a new genre of hardware hacking to me, where someone is motivated to make a device out of compassion for their family or others. It reminds me of this instance where someone designed their own peristaltic pump to ensure their grandfather can eat:
https://hackaday.com/2015/11/10/3d-printed-peristalic-pump-h...
I seem to recall another similar device to this posted on HN also, but with audiobooks.
On an unrelated note, the modern digital age does deprive me of my longtime love of removable media, whether analogue or digital. There's a mechanical satisfaction in having a physical token which is decisively inserted into something. USB drives just don't have the kinetic enjoyment of a floppy disk or tape. (Clearly the next iteration of the OP's design needs a motorised NFC card loader, ATM-style. ;))
Author here. TOTALLY!!
Look instead to Skylanders. You need to make a 3d printed avatar for each movie with an NFC antenna in the base.
I remember when I was little I figured out how to use the VHS to set timers record shows etc, I think making things difficult is useful, it forces some learning to get a 'reward'.
I found the same growing up. But at the time (the 90s) there weren't hyperstimuli available in the form of smartphones, streaming services, or engagement-optimized algorithmic content feeds. The broadcast television that was available was often boring, or at least poorly matched to any given person's interests at a given time. We didn't have a game console at home either, so getting a game to work meant installing it on the family computer, and maybe troubleshooting problems myself.
I don't know that I'd have learned as much as I did about computers at that age if such hyper-optimized things had been available to me as a kid. And I think their availability today proves that any notion of "digital natives" was a fallacy. The generation below me (Gen-Z, Zoomers?) seem to be experts at using touchscreen devices and social networks. Some of them are even flocking to text based AI games that seem intriguing. But they see computers largely as fixed appliances, and most give up pretty quickly when a computer malfunctions (whether it comes in the form of a phone, laptop, tablet, television, or something else).
I now deliberately work to banish (and keep banished) as much of that algorithmically optimized hyperreality as possible out of my home and life. I feel much better without it, and always have. But I also think it's a good practice to get used to so that, if I ever have kids, it'll be the norm I pass on to their daily lives. Your first computer should require some assembly and tinkering, and digital activities which are really just skinner boxes created as lures by some or other corporation shouldn't be available to compete with more difficult, more rewarding pursuits.
And, importantly, it's not that they learned the new tech fluently while millennials haven't adapted—there aren't "modern" digital skills that aren't readily learned by millennials, but there certainly are fewer Gen Z adults who have learned to fluently use the still-more-powerful keyboard-based tech that we picked up as kids.
As an adult I find it strange how nontechnical so many people are. I really am concerned for them in the future as AI and scams get so much better and much more complex.
I agree, but it's so much more than keyboards.
Things that irritated me for years about smartphones were irritations because I'd been able to do them on desktops and laptops but suddenly couldn't on a smartphone. I knew that the hardware qualified it as a general purpose computer, and that it was locked down into being a more limited appliance. Features were added back over the years, and there's even an argument that we normalized much better security practices on both iOS and Android/AOSP because of that development cadence but, for most people whose first computer was a phone, the concept of a general purpose computer is simply missing from their awareness and "computer" becomes merely a word meaning black-box, magical appliance. And they don't discover what the appliance truly could be---its full potential---because it now works well enough for its specific purpose that they can leave the black box closed.
It may be a historically inevitable closing of doors, in the same way that cars stopped being machines most people understood long before the advent of the microcomputer, but I feel a sense of loss for other people. My reading of human history is that when there's a rough technological parity (i.e. parity of understanding, access, and usefulness) between individuals and large institutions, you tend to see more freedom. When there isn't, you see less-to-none.
Although time is ticking and I be we'll soon have the influence from 'peer pressure' - we're getting our daughter prepped for secondary/high school next year so she's got an old iPhone to play around with but thankfully she has zero interest in tech as a distraction. She sends a message to her friends every now and then, she watches some tutorials on Youtube for the piano, and of course some cat videos. My bigger worry is that she is going to bankrupt me from books... she's reading a new one every other week and has a real attachment to them so I can't persuade her to go to the local library...
As for books, I've fallen in love with my Kobo Clara e-reader. It can run side-loaded software like Plato or KOReader, and I've loaded it with just about everything from https://standardebooks.org/. Maybe get your daughter an e-reader (Kobo or other model) for Christmas, paired with a monthly budget/stipend for books that she chooses how to spend?
At the same age, I read a ton, and I unfortunately got into fiction in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. Those books were WAY too overpriced, simply for using the D&D properties in their naming and stories. The books I felt were excellent, but the authors could have replaced names with something generic, and they would have been just as captivating. Having an e-reader would have made those costs far less painful, and I probably would have read at least twice as many books. I imagine if the books aren't highly trademarked or being made into movies, now you could probably get 3 times the number of e-books for the cost of a physical book.
Alternatively, take her to second hand book fairs and stimulate bargain book hunting in charity shops.
Pet theory: This perception is largely from their confidence in messing around until something works, which has only a loose connection to the operator's competence.
Younger generations have grown up with devices that are (A) more idiot-proofed and (B) cheaper and easier to replace and (C) less supervision when using it. This leads to a different way of approaching the problem, which may be more-effective but isn't necessarily more-knowledgeable.
In contrast, older generations who grew up with "never press these two buttons at the same time or it can explode" operate with an implicit assumption that those Kids These Days must know something their parents don't in order to mess around so casually.
In the most advanced version I had it read letters to read a word aloud (eg, a spelling tool). All so I could reenact the scene from Sneakers where they rearrange Scrabble tiles from SETEC ASTRONOMY to TOO MANY SECRETS :)
A lot of comments seem to think that millenials or younger don't have an interest in technology, but I think that's only because they see their older peers or family members perfectly fine with a dumbed down interface to get their needs taken care of.
As a 45 year old, that got started with computers at 2 years old watching and playing around with games my dad would write on an Atari 800XE/XL system, my 13 year old son gets all of the touch interfaces, but also picked up a serious interest in tech from watching me. I didn't want to push him into software, wanting him to find his own way with his interests, but in the last year he has shown an interest in figuring out what is behind all those touch interfaces and websites that just do things "automatically."
I had taking apart crystal radios and learning to put multiple viruses on the family computer to have them fight for the "ultimate" virus as my learning experience. I think curiosity is learned, and even encouraging things outside of technology can lead into technology or science/math/problem solving. Younger generations are just as hungry for knowledge, we just have hidden it away, and need to give them a peek behind the scenes.
After this post, perhaps tech for kids need to be difficult to encourage learning.
https://blog.fuzzymistborn.com/homeassistant-and-catt-cast-a...
You can cast YouTube URLs directly, as well as general media files over the local network.
My theory is QR-codes up to a camera: http://192.168.1.123/randomvid.php?topic=XYZ => shuf | head -1 | catt --target=$MY_TV
You can even do QR code reading via a web-page, and "add-to-homepage" if you wanted to put it onto an iPad.
Obviously the OP project is better thought out, but it's quite good to learn different bits and pieces and strategies about deep linking and internal media.
Reminds me of this Raspberry Pi + SONOS project from a few years back:
https://www.hackster.io/mark-hank/sonos-spotify-vinyl-emulat...
I actually set that system up and it was awesome! Really was cool and fun to have the little cards, look through them and then "tap" to start the album. Unfortunately I needed the Raspberry Pi for an emergency and then have never fot around to running again. I fear now, with all the SONOS fun (that has destroyed my 8 speaker setup :'( ), it won't work any more.
She's now 10, and knows ~100 playlists by number. "I want to listen to 37!"
The pi and power are hidden behind a bookshelf, so all that is actually visible is the numkey and the speaker.
[0] https://www.microcenter.com/product/608178/4_Official_Case_-...
Having offline and finite media consumption feels much more satisfying than the modern endless scrolling IMHO.
For v2 I'd say the NFC cards be the size and shape of a VHS and you have to leave them in the slot to play. If you take them out it stops playing.
Maybe v3 you need to virtually rewind them before they work again? :-)
Definitely crossed my mind! Especially the slot system!
Rewinding could be fun as well. I could use our Sonos speakers to play the VHS rewinding sound, lol
Do it. That's a long game prank.
I have a similar setup but I've been using chip cards and a card reader. I find it much more intuitive than just placing an NFC card over a reader. The card reader blinks when a card is inserted, changes colour, it's all very obvious and physical, with immediate feedback.
In my case I only use it with music though (I deem them still too small to choose movies themselves).
I've been using reclaimed chip cards (various bank cards mostly) which all have an easy to read kind of ID, but I haven't been able to find a way to write things to blank cards as easy as one can do with NFC cards though.
V5 he starts franchising....
There’s no particularly good reason that it should be legally impermissible for someone to build and sell a system like this loaded with movies from before, say, 2010 (or 2000, or whatever), but instead what the prospective entrepreneur would be legally able to include would be … Steamboat Willie, and other films of that vintage (as an aside, while Disney’s had a pretty rough couple of years, I’m pretty sure that Steamboat Willie being out of copyright has nothing to do with any of that).
This sort of experience shouldn’t be limited to children of high-tech folks with access to 3D printers: it should be possible for any child — or adult!
There is more content now then there are eyeballs or time available to consume any of it.
What happens to value and price of product when there is more of it produced than consumed?
Streaming services rely on volume; for them, hardware just isn't worth it.
There's definitely a business case to be made with this if it were legal. There's sketchy Chinese pre-built mini PCs with emulators + 50k-100k ROMS that you can buy for ~$100 on Amazon right now, so basically following this exact business model. I'm actually surprised that there aren't similar products for movies (from what I can tell anyway).
Looking for link
EDIT - not the one I remembered but here’s one implementation https://andreasjr.com/blog/interactive-wall-of-album-art/
I hope so!
When we buy books for our younger nieces and nephews we buy companion stuffed animals and then sew an NFC tag (the small quarter size ones) into them with the YouTube read-along url encoded on it.
So you could set it up so that Bluey is only on at 3pm for 30 minutes a day, or whatever.
I've thought about setting it up for my kids (and wife) but haven't done it yet.
Also in this case (since it just laminated cards anyway) the usability is much easier. The kid just has to touch something. While with a QR it has to be positioned in a way that a camera can see and focus to it.
I actually hadn't considered QR codes.
To be honest, I had some NFC tags laying around and I was desperate to find a project for them ;)
QR codes might be more complicated because you need a camera and a well-lit environment. NFC tags don't have that issue.
https://www.shopnfc.com/en/content/6-nfc-tags-specs
It also seems that ESPHome has support for reading / writing this arbitrary metadata, once you move to the PN532:
https://esphome.io/components/binary_sensor/pn532.html#ndef
(It's not clear that you can access the metadata with the RC522 through ESPHome, but the hardware should support it.)
But hey, what you've got works.
I have something similar setup in my home office for my music and I just use the ID, no need to complicate it any more than it already is.
At least it’s not screen time?
Same here! I have debated making something similar for my personal music collection. I used to meticulously organize my albums in iTunes and listen to them in full. Somehow I stopped doing that with Spotify. The magic of the album is gone for me.
From a functional perspective would it not be simpler to simply burn dvd / blu-rays and if they are old enough use that system? (Given that kids are not exactly careful with physical media burning copies takes away the worry)
I dont get a feel for how many movies you have printed cards for, but it doesn't look that many.
Something like a Streamdeck with buttons for each movie could work but then you do lose part of the physical media feeling.
I found vinyl CD labels [1] that I can print on my color laser printer that look pretty decent, it only takes a few minutes to burn the CD, find an image of a retail disc and put it in the label's Canva template.
My car is a 2017 and it still has a CD player, and I also found a fairly inexpensive portable player [2] that charges with USB-C, the anti-skip is pretty impressive now. I can put it in my pocket and walk around or clean the house and I've never had it skip, it will actually spin down the disc when it's read far enough ahead.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C2V9D3FD
[2] https://klimtechs.com/products/klim-nomad-portable-cd-player...
The players are even more impressive (I have one that plays something like 20 hours on a single AA battery), you can re-record the disks via USB using a WebUSB based webapp [1] these days for NetMD recorders, and the disks actually are almost infinitely re-recordable and much more stable than CD-Rs (which are write-once and only last a couple of years).
https://support.firecore.com/hc/en-us/articles/215090997-API...
I also evaluated Plex but ended up with Infuse as it seemed perfect for my needs. The Apple TV app is great. Plex probably has more features though. I renew it once a year.
Wow, thanks for sharing this! I used to pay for Infuse as well, but switched to Plex for the deep linking. Might go back to Infuse because the Plex app occasionally freezes at startup.
PS: I will also publish my solution once I rewrite a few parts of it (cleanup).
Anyway, I have to ask: Is it possible to make a similar project for Netflix and/or YouTube?
The Apple TV also supports deep links for other services. Here are examples for the biggest streaming services:
Netflix (use the regular URL):
https://www.netflix.com/title/80234304
Disney+ (use regular URL):
https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/coco/db9orsI5O4gC
YouTube (use the regular URL with https:// replaced by youtube://)
Single video: youtube://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah3ezprtgmc
Playlist: youtube://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v=FkUn86bH34M&list=PLzvRQMJ9HDiQF_5bEErheiAawrJ-2zQoI&pp=iAQB
Not that bad of a ordeal though.
The annoying part is reprinting the sticker and attaching it to the card
Kids movies are like an hour long. How are kids ever going to develop any sort of an attention span if they never see the ending of things
We are on a forum filled with people working on these super addicting infinite scroll technologies at YouTube, Instagram, maybe even TikTok. At the same time though, this post removing all these addictive technologies has reached the #1 spot on HN (and HN is deliberately made without any of this addicting tech!!)
I think it is time for people to really realize how addicting the tech they are making is, without masking it with words like 'friction' and 'engagement'. And hopefully they will slowly work on making their tech a little bit less addictive.
Before Covid we had some kind of movement like this, but it has sadly dwindled.
As a consumer, I try follow the reverse of William Painter's advice to King Camp Gillette before he invented the famous razor, "invent something people use and throw away" and arrive at "buy things you can actually own and use repeatedly."
It's not a pretty sight.
I’ve recently rediscovered my old music collection from the pre-streaming days on an old NAS, thousands of mp3s with carefully curated id3 tags etc. I’m almost tempted to create a similar system but for albums!
Thank you and congrats! Enjoy the ride!
"Ah you'll just scan a punch card of course and it will play a movie."
You're the hipster Dad now.
> First: you have a limited choice of movies to watch. When I was a kid, we didn't have an infinite catalog of movies to watch.
Something always rubs me the wrong way with this way of thinking. "X is good because I had X when I was young." I don't necessarily disagree that X is good, but it's definitely not because you had it as a kid.
You could still have a giant library and rotate cards every week or something.
But I do see the potential for primary schools / kindergartens, retirement homes or any group where they occasionally have screen time. Makes choosing the next movie much more fun and no need to interact with a digital UI.
Having a curated selection instead of a near infinite catalog full of noise is one of them. Not exposing the kids to a UX optimised for retention (a.k.a. addiction) would be my main motivation though.
Because I had that as a kid, would be at the bottom of the list.
You make a good point. The "it was better in my day" argument isn't always valid. I didn't mean to imply that something is inherently good just because it existed in the past.
But I do believe that having a smaller collection is nicer. It leads to a deeper appreciation for what you have. Each item in your library feels more special and valuable. And getting something new becomes exciting (I still remember getting a copy of The Lion King on VHS). This isn't something I get from browsing Netflix because new stuff is constantly being added.
As a bonus, it also helps with decision paralysis, which young kids are more susceptible to. At least that's my experience. Give them lots of toys and they'll play with none. Keeping the toy selection limited and rotating them is better (at least for my kids).
Thank you for letting me reflect on this! I will rephrase the post.
I really appreciate the effort you took for your kids here. Thanks for showing us!
I was quite surprised of the printing quality as well.
Never had it clog up. But I have all kinds of issues with that printer. Always connects to the network but randomly refuses to print. Sometimes it only prints half a page. Sometimes it prints half a page and retries by itself. Scanning is pretty much impossible on macOS because the drivers aren't maintained. etc...
It's horrible. But when it prints, the quality is good...
Honestly, I get cold sweats from the thought of having to print something.
I need to do this finally.
Maybe there's a plus to solutions like those where you learn how things work because you need to get them all to collaborate. But that's a different discussion.
I know Blu-Rays can take a bit more than a CD, but even they won't stand up to a 2yo.
Edit: seem the author himself sort of agrees. He buys Blu-Rays and puts them on the Plex. Could just skip the Plex part and let them play the Blu-Rays...
But why not just have them handle the blu rays directly? Unless - you ripped them to your Plex and resold them…
It does seem that some parts of the story is missing. Maybe it's to safeguard the blurays or maybe they never existed in the first place?
I do have all the Blurays. They're collecting dust in the garage ;)
My kids are only 3 and 2. They would probably destroy the disks and the player in no-time. Also: I don't have a Bluray player connected to the TV (apart from the Playstation, which I definitely don't want them to fiddle with yet). I use an old computer to rip the discs.
I might let them use the discs when they're a bit older.
Fair question! I have all the disks. They're in the garage gathering dust.
My kids are 3 and 2, so letting them handle the disks isn't a great idea right now. Might do that one day though!
The fact that so many people come up with these kinds of solutions POST betamax begs questions. There seems to be some inherent unfairness in how unaccessible stuff is becoming.. It's interesting how we're trading the convenience (of signing up and paying montly for a dozen of rental services) for usability and tangibility..
Late Gen X rant incoming: WHEN I WAS A KID.. When I was 3 years old, I could put on the music I wanted to listen to.. It was easy, take the tape out of the case, put it into my cassette radio (if it didn't fit, try flipping it), and press the triangle.. poof, music.. I didn't need to be able to read, there were pictures on the tapes, so I could still find my favourite tunes.. When we got our first video machine, a betamax, it was the same thing, just put the tape into the machine, press the triangle, poof, the movie I had chosen played on the TV..
Then came DVDs, I was older then, so it was no problem for me, but, usability wise, DVDs were a step backwards.. You pop it in and press the tr.. No, you're met with unskippable copyright disclaimers and then presented with an animated menu, where you needed to be able to read to understand how to start the movie, suddenly, the movie itself contained (non standardized) ways of starting it, selecting chapters and such.. Sure, we traded the amazing ability to look at deleted scenes for the ability of of a small child to be able to start it.. but honestly, not even worth it..
Skip to online streaming services and their crappy apps.. Jesus.. Disney is how big of a company and their app is nearly unusable compared to a stack of VHS tapes..
We're putting untold layers of unneeded complexity on EVERYTHING these days, and I'm not even sure we do it because we can, I'm afraid we're doing it because we don't know how not to..
The early VCRs, cassette players and CD players were simple due to technological and economical constraints, but those constraints forced an extremely intuitive mode of operation which was transferable between similar devices.
We're leaving a world polluted, drowned in untold complexity at all levels for our children, and honestly, we can't even navigate it very well ourselves, even if we have most of the story about how things got to be that way in the back of our heads. Stuff that we understand deeply already seems like complete magic to the younger generations.. We ought to do better, to builder simpler and more BASIC systems at every level, from instruction set architecture through to UI.. The fact people find it reasonable that you almost have to use a "tech stack" is abysmal.. There shouldn't HAVE to be really much of anything between your code and the metal it runs on.
All that aside, this is a great idea! I'm going to do something simiar for my kid I think.
Example: People used to call friends over a land line and tell them to tune into the movie on whatever channel and they’d watch at the same time together from two different places. Doing anything like that with modern tech is such a hassle these days that no one does it anymore.
I grew up in a country where English is not the primary language spoken and when I was young all the cool shows and movies were in English. As a kid this was a huge incentive and went far above and beyond any education I had in English in my home country. I can’t overstate how valuable this has been to me as an immigrant to an English speaking country.
Dubbing is far more expensive than subs. So countries like Germany or France would be more likely to afford it. They're also countries which try to promote the use of their language for historical and national pride reasons (as opposed to Anglicization of everything) so it makes them even more likely to have dubs. They also had dubbing for so long that it became cultural and maybe even expected.
Contrast that with countries like the former Eastern block which had no foreign material to speak of until the '90s, and when they finally did they couldn't afford dubbing, so they went with the quick and easy route of subs. They also probably have fewer aspirations for the promotion of their own language and priorities practicality over pride, embracing foreign languages faster.
I think the language is close enough to English that it's easily picked up even watching only dubbed movies as a kid. In contrast friends of mine who mostly watched French-dubbed movies when they were small (because they were close to the border and Club Dorothée was better than whatever was available here) didn't learn much French, but they're fluent in English today (and that's with mandatory French lessons at school, much earlier than English lessons).
So English-version of movies is really unnecessary for kids here IMO. In my family we only watch French or Dutch (dubbed or original) movies with the kids and I think that's fine.
I'm pretty sure the ease of speaking English for Dutch speakers comes mostly from the closeness of the language (as evidenced by my comment on people who watched French-dubbed anime as kids, not Japanese original or English-dubbed). And TV content for children (including De leeuwenkoning or Een luizenleven, to take examples from the article) is almost universally dubbed in Dutch as far as I can tell.
My personal opinion is that watching movies in English is really not as useful as people think it is, it does help once you already know the language but children just don't pick up a language by watching movies in that language without having already some basic knowledge of that language.
IMO (but it's starting to get off-topic) it's more generally Latin languages that are a hindrance for their native speakers for some reason, and globally Latin speakers are just always bad at learning other (non-Latin) languages, especially at speaking them. But it's not because they're watching Le Roi Lion rather than The Lion King.
My english grades were very good thanks to it. Now I'm exposed more to english (movies, shows, internet, os) than german I've switched to german subs and started watching anime again 20 years later.
I keep fucking up numbers as german numbers are one-hundred-five-and-fifty instead of one-hundred-fifty-five and too many of my thoughts are in english.
There is a small movement trying to make both acceptable
Both are fine in the UK, though the "five-and-fifty" form is somewhat old fashioned. My Grandmother used to say numbers like that, especially for time. I refer you also to "Sing a Song of Sixpence" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence
I've only even seen the Germanic number ordering in poetry.
Maybe this one of those sites that don't let you view them from outside their intended region, but I'd use 403 for that, so I assume it just got hugged
So are Dutch numbers.
I would suggest the German public broadcast channels on Youtube with subtitles instead of Anime.
https://www.youtube.com/@Handwerkskunst/videos https://www.youtube.com/@ARDRoomTour
And we're on the verge of AI being able to translate everything in basically real time, spoken or written.
I agree with your estimation of the value of media you want that's not available in your language, in regards to language learning. I'm a little sad that that motivation won't exist for many people in the future, but also happy that they can just enjoy the content.