BD or BRD? (1 Viewer)

[ROclockCK]

Living out here in ranchland, I immediately think of 'Bovine Respiratory Disease'.

The first time I saw 'BRD' in one of these home video threads I wondered what the h3ll that post had to do with distressed cattle? Seriously. I mean, there are like two dozen different legit uses for that acronym.

 

[Joel Fontenot]

Living out here in ranchland, I immediately think of 'Bovine Respiratory Disease'.

The first time I saw 'BRD' in one of these home video threads I wondered what the h3ll that post had to do with distressed cattle? Seriously. I mean, there are like two dozen different legit uses for that acronym.

And one of them, according to that list, is "Blue Ray Disc".

 

[Carabimero]

I have always thought BD looks weird as an abbreviation for Blu-ray Disc, because it was missing a letter, and in fact should simply be BR, not BD or BRD. But then I always thought Digital Versatile Disc for DVD was equally as weird. For me, DVD will always stand for Digital Video Disc and BD will always take some getting used to.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

I have always used BD, mainly out of laziness and because I'm a poor typist. It takes me approx. (see what I did there) 30% longer to type it with the R...

 

[ROclockCK]

And one of them, according to that list, is "Blue Ray Disc".

Oh sure Joel, I'm not trying to imply it isn't legit, only that for some of us (many?) "Blu-ray Disc" is not what we think of immediately when we see "BRD". Of course, I've adjusted for this context now, so no preference over its use either way...

It's kinda like "IP"; I've seen many uses of that acronym here in reference to "Inter-Positive" (a film term, makes sense), or even "Intellectual Property" (ditto), but to a network veteran like me, it will always mean "Internet Protocol" (e.g. TCP/IP).

Just different backgrounds, how we're individually wired...

 

[Persianimmortal]

Being serious for a moment, and going on a slight tangent, I've always felt that HD DVD had the edge over Blu-ray in terms of naming. For the average consumer, it's much easier to understand that an HD DVD is simply a DVD which provides HD quality. Whereas Blu-ray, BD or whatever we want to call it, sounds like an entirely different technology from DVD, where really it's not that different. I don't want to re-open the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray debate, I just would have liked the names to have been swapped, as I think that maybe, just maybe, it may have led to greater adoption of the format by the average joe. Especially for people who aren't aware that a Blu-ray player also plays DVDs, when it might be a little more obvious that an HD DVD player also plays SD DVDs.

 

[ROclockCK]

Yikes! "HD DVD" was one of the worst home video acronyms because of the confusion it created among buyers thinking it meant they could play these discs in their existing devices. I understand (anecdotally only via retail contacts) that the initial returns of HD DVDs were substantial ("Hey, it says 'DVD' on the package and uses the same font style/logo???").

At least "Blu-ray Disc" implied a new recording and playback system. What it didn't do such a great job of was reassuring buyers that BD players would be backward compatible with their existing DVDs. Only last month, the couple across the street admitted they hadn't replaced their ailing DVD player with a Blu-ray player because they thought that would mean replacing all of their discs.

 

[Persianimmortal]

Fair point, I guess HD DVD did mislead people into thinking they could play it on a regular DVD player. This was apparently a problem with the name Blu-ray too (at least in the early days), as confirmed with a quick Google search, though probably not to the same extent.

Still, in my idealized world, the progression would have been from the name DVD to HD DVD (with Blu-ray specs), and regular DVD players would have been quickly phased out to be replaced entirely by "HD-capable" DVD players which could play both discs - or just known as DVD players, encompassing both SD and HD standards. Then when people wandered around stores and saw a title, whether DVD or HD DVD, there wouldn't have been any hesitation or doubt as to purchasing it. I'm not sure the geek-sounding "Blu-ray" name has been positive for marketing purposes.

 

[ROclockCK]

Fair point, I guess HD DVD did mislead people into thinking they could play it on a regular DVD player. This was apparently a problem with the name Blu-ray too (at least in the early days), as confirmed with a quick Google search, though probably not to the same extent.

Still, in my idealized world, the progression would have been from the name DVD to HD DVD (with Blu-ray specs), and regular DVD players would have been quickly phased out to be replaced entirely by "HD-capable" DVD players which could play both discs - or just known as DVD players, encompassing both SD and HD standards. Then when people wandered around stores and saw a title, whether DVD or HD DVD, there wouldn't have been any hesitation or doubt as to purchasing it. I'm not sure the geek-sounding "Blu-ray" name has been positive for marketing purposes.

Probably not. But also a more or less moot point Koroush. By the mid-to-late 00s, regardless how high def discs were sold to them, I still think most mainstream consumers would have stuck with their 'good enough upscaled' DVDs anyway...or just streamed instead...as they have in practice ever since. Simply no fighting that unboxed tide in terms of convenience. which has always trumped quality in the mass market.

If the industry had waited a few more years, then technologically leapfrogged, as they did with DVD, going straight to a 4k standard throughout the chain, that might have been too much of an improvement to ignore...of course, a topic for another thread.

IMO though, the name/acronym had little to do with Blu-ray's market penetration.

 

[TonyD]

I always type bluray no hyphen although I have used br a handful of times.

 

[andySu]

Yeah it does say BDR.

 

[Citizen87645]

When I had to explain the format war, I quickly realized what a bitch "HD DVD" is to say repeatedly compared to "Blu-ray."

 

[Mike Frezon]

Happy BD, Blu-ray!

 

[mstgator]

Robert, I don't want to see the BDA come and arrest you. You are too valuable here!