Basic and Retro Definitions
Posted on | October 11, 2008 at 9:57 am | 2 Comments
Tonight I’m going to watch a BD.
Do you know what I’m referring to?
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you most likely know. But if you just stumbled here and weren’t totally familiar with home theater and new technologies, you’d probably be confused by that statement.
“BD” is apparently the accepted abbreviation for “Blu-ray Disc”, the High Definition media format that is replacing DVD as the hard storage/viewing medium for home theater movies and TV shows. Earlier this year, it won the HD format war against the other HiDef disc standard, HD-DVD.
I believe that one of the reasons the DVD format succeeded is that it’s easy to refer to. Not everyone knew exactly what “DVD” stood for when the format first came out. Most people still probably don’t know what it stands for. Heck, the people behind the format aren’t even sure what it stands for. It started out as “Digital Visual Disc” or “Digital Versatile Disc”, but then sort of morphed into “Digital Video Disc”, which is what most consumers would probably say it stands for if you pressed them. Which means that a “DVD-Video” disc is a Digital Video Disc Video Disc and a “DVD-Audio” disc is a “Digital Video Disc Audio Disc”, but we won’t go there. Whoops, already did.
But it doesn’t matter just what “DVD” stands for. What matters is that everyone knows what it means, and it rolls off the tongue pretty easily. It’s even easier to say than “VHS” or “videotape”, the format it replaced.
I don’t believe this will ever really happen with “BD”. For one thing, I think Blu-ray’s time in the sun is going to be pretty short compared to DVDs and whatever comes next (digital downloads, most likely). It won’t hit anywhere near the market penetration DVD has, and will probably co-exist with DVD for quite some time to come. So there won’t be a real big need for people to refer to Blu-ray discs at all.
And then there’s the fact that “BD” is just sort of awkward to say. I think that generally when people want to refer to an individual Blu-ray disc these days, they just call it a “Blu-ray” and leave off the “disc”. (”Did you get the awesome new Blu-ray of Iron Man that hangs up your PS3?”) This is likely acceptable to the general public, and the people involved in the conversation usually know what is being referred to. It even has less syllables than “DVD”. I don’t like it though. It does not convey the proper information. “Blu-ray” is a format, “Blu-ray Disc” is an object.
I feel that the abbreviation should actually be “BRD” (”Blu-ray Disc”). That’s the same number of syllables as “DVD” and it conveys all the necessary info. I think it has a little better chance of connecting with Joe and Sarah Consumer than “BD” because it sounds more like “DVD”. I don’t think it will catch on though. It just doesn’t sound as good as “DVD”. The “B” and the “R” just don’t roll off the tongue together very well. And most people are still going to wonder exactly what it is.
But in all likelihood, most people will just refer to Blu-ray Discs as DVDs, even after there aren’t any more DVDs. (Will retailers like DVD Empire start calling themselves BD Empire?) The term “DVD” is very ingrained into our popular culture, and like other such terms, it will be used to refer to a generic video storage medium long after it no longer applies. So that should be my greater concern. But it’s not.
Latre.
Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: Wipeout HD (PS3), where I got my first PS3 trophies (4 so far) at last. Also did some online Wipeout play. And Heavenly Sword (PS3), where I finally got through the penultimate stage, “Heaven and Hell”. I got out my old beanbag chair and am using that to play videogames from the floor, closer to the TV. It seems to help.
Pet Peeve of the Day: Stuck on the ultimate stage of Heavenly Sword, “Redemption”. That sucker’s hard.
Comments
2 Responses to “Basic and Retro Definitions”
Jag-offs →
October 11th, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
In World of Warcraft, BRD = Blackrock Depths, an instance… er, dungeon. So I’d be thinking that all the time if it was “BRD,” even if it makes sense.
I have a feeling I’m going to go straight from DVD to whatever the thing is after Blu-Ray given my current financial forecast…
October 11th, 2008 @ 7:18 pm
Oh, everybody’s heard that the BRD is the word…