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An NFC movie library for my kids

simplyexplained.com

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Re: An NFC movie library for my kids

#141
post #92

I have an extremely similar setup for my 3yr old. He has his NFC cards and select from stuff we find suitable. The TV comes on, one episode runs, TV goes off. 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 the…

I am slowly preparing myself, but the usage tracking made me wonder. What are you planning to do?

Re: An NFC movie library for my kids

#142

> And finally, if you're a non-English speaker, Blu-rays will include a dubbed version in your native language. This is a big plus for the kids, especially when they're as young as mine are now. 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…

The author is apparently a Dutch speaker, and English fluency really isn't a problem in Flanders or the Netherlands.

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.

Re: An NFC movie library for my kids

#143
post #116

This is incredible! I want to replicate this at home as well, but I would prefer to use QR codes since they also support URLs. Any reason why you went with NFC instead of QR code? I assume it's doable with a raspberry pi and webcam instead of tapping?

OP here 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.

My thought process was to laminate them to make them easier to make at home. I agree that it’s definitely more child friendly. This maybe a project I attempt at home and will post if I’m successful.

Re: An NFC movie library for my kids

#144
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I unplugged the Alexa for about 6 months, that was a good reset, and we have a few tablets etc but no nonsense apps installed. 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 he…

That attachment might be something to work on. I wouldn't mind stimulating my kid to build up their own library once they've reached the point of reading adult fiction and books can be reread by themselves after a few years, or enjoyed by others in the household. But at her age the library is perfect. Most of the books they read at that age are of transient value.

Alternatively, take her to second hand book fairs and stimulate bargain book hunting in charity shops.

Re: An NFC movie library for my kids

#145
post #126

This is absolutely awesome. 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? :-)

OP here 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

> slot system

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.

Re: An NFC movie library for my kids

#146

> And finally, if you're a non-English speaker, Blu-rays will include a dubbed version in your native language. This is a big plus for the kids, especially when they're as young as mine are now. 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…

I have this general feeling based my 21 years bouncing around Europe that subtitle countries have better English than dub countries, although I'm not proposing that the link is causative

My perception from traveling to 40+ countries is that countries where dubbing is common do so for the reason that the population is more illiterate and lower-educated in general, and that trend just extends to having less fluency in other languages.

Re: An NFC movie library for my kids

#147

> And finally, if you're a non-English speaker, Blu-rays will include a dubbed version in your native language. This is a big plus for the kids, especially when they're as young as mine are now. 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…

for me it was computer games, specifically Civ 2. Imagine playing that as a second-grader with zero English. But I had strong motivation, and ploughed through the game, dictionary in hand.

Re: An NFC movie library for my kids

#148

> And finally, if you're a non-English speaker, Blu-rays will include a dubbed version in your native language. This is a big plus for the kids, especially when they're as young as mine are now. 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…

I have this general feeling based my 21 years bouncing around Europe that subtitle countries have better English than dub countries, although I'm not proposing that the link is causative

It's definitely a contributing factor. Living in the Netherlands, Dutch kids learn English through Youtube and Tiktok. Since it's a small country there's less Dutch spoken online, as opposed to German which has dubs for a lot of movies / TV shows.

Re: An NFC movie library for my kids

#149
post #55

Awesome. Reminded me of Yoto, an internet radio style thing for kids that uses little NFC cards. https://us.yotoplay.com/ 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. https://us.tonies.com/ Techmoan did a video on that too (it’s how I know about both): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…

There's also an RPI based version at https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-Jukebox-RFID

Re: An NFC movie library for my kids

#150

This is fun, but wouldn't some second hand Blu Rays have been simpler?

I'm not going to knock the idea down because that's how I grew up but, depending on your setup, buying a Blu-ray player means you have to hook it up (do you have enough inputs? Enough room? Do you need an extension cord?), choose the right source every time ("no, you're in HDMI1, you need S-Video"), have a second remote ("Have you seen the remote? No, the other one"), figure out why the box is empty (perhaps the disc is under the couch? And why does it have marmelade on it?), etc.

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.

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