HDM Needs a Name!
 

Seriously, we don't even know how to abbreviate "Blu-Ray." Is it BD? BR? BRD? And Blu-Ray is a pain in the ass to type.

I for one am going to stick to "HDM" for "Hi-Def Media" when referring to any physical format. It's just easier.

But seriously, "Blu-Ray" is not a keeper.

Or maybe we should be talking about "HDVD" and "SDVD"?

Actually, it's:
Blu-ray Disc, or BD for short.

Personally when I first was told that they were calling the technology Blu-Ray as a brand name I thought my friend was kidding. Nobody would use a name that stupid as their brand name, right?

"The look and sound of perfect" is actually kind of a cool tag line though. Wonder if Sony can steal it if the other format does indeed go bye bye. ;)

"The Look and Sound of Buying out Enough Studios".

How About,

"The Look and Sound of raising royality fees"

rotfl

Blu Balls - we'll get to having the HD DVD functionality soon enough...

STD DVD. The next mutation of the HD Virus.

How about VD STD? :D

BTW, I kid you not, but my middle school principal's name was "V.D. Luster".

I hate that, every time I type 'Blu-Ray', the automatic spell-checker puts a red line under it. ugh. The name needs to be ditched ASAP.

You know, you can add the word to your dictionary. Right-click --> Add.

But before you do, make sure you spell it correctly. It's Blu-ray, not Blu-Ray.

The "buying out studios" and "Blu balls" comments are not necessary. And "The Look and Sound of Perfect" is an awful marketing slogan.

Yeah. HD-DVD was pretty straightforward and intuitive. But never underestimate the Sony marketing juggernaut.

Even with my HD-DVD clearly labeled and the cool logo appearing when you'd power it on, I'd get people all the time referring to my player as a Blu-ray. It would drive me nuts!

Maybe Sony will reconsider renaming their stupidly named product HiDef DVD.

I see the store adverts for a lot of films touted as "Available on DVD and High-Def Blu-Ray", so I wouldn't be surprised if they started using "HD-BD".

I actually like the name Blu-ray... I think it sounds cool and makes it stand out as something new... but I do call them "BD's" in regular conversation all the time...

I agree, I don't like the name Blu-ray, it sounds, I dunno, toy-ish. Hopefully when everything is settled it'll be something more format friendly.

I like Blu-ray.

I also like Blu-Ray since it differentiates itself from DVD.

Call me anal-retentive, but I refuse to add a "word" to my dictionary that isn't actually a word. I won't even add my surname...

Blu will never be a real word as far as I'm concerned, unless you're talking about Blu Cantrell. ;)

How about Beta-Ray Disc? (Riffing off those old Walt Simsonson Thor issues from 20 years back)

Along those lines, maybe they could change it to "Gamma-Ray". That way, when Universal starts releasing on Sony's HD format and it comes time for the release of "The Incredible Hulk", they could say "available on DVD and Gamma-Ray". How cool would that be? ;)

Too bad "The Incredible Hulk" is a Universal title. Doh!

Aren't Blu-ray Discs also Digital-Video-Discs? It seems silly to leave that out of the name of the technology. It should probably be called Blu-ray DVD which is what I hear people calling them anyway.

Blu-ray is too close to 'blurry', which will work well for activists, I guess. They can go into stores and put a 'Blurry' sticker over top of every 'Blu-ray' logo. Now the problem is finding activists who can find a good enough reason to do that...

Technically, yes, Blu-ray Discs are "digital video discs", in that a) they are discs, b) they contain video, and c) they store it digitally.

However, the name "DVD" is internationally copyrighted and trademarked by the DVD forum, and the Blu-ray format is not sanctioned or recognized by that forum. So, it would be illegal for them to use the "DVD" name in any official publication or branding.

Maybe when HD DVD is finally on the scrap pile they can get the blessing from the DVD forum to call it Blu-DVD or BDVD or something like that. I always thought that one of the best things HD DVD had going for it in terms of mass adoption was the familiarity of the name.

I hope that this will be the case. Or even BVD (Blu-ray Video Disc), although this might just be confusing as it sounds too similar to DVD.

I think there was a brand of men's underwear called "BVD". I don't think I would be comfortable with that abbreviation for a disc format ...

:lol: I totally forgot about that. Never mind then.

I wonder if they could get away with "HDVD."

Not HD-DVD which would be a trademark infringement. But simply "High Definition Video Disc."

After all, everybody knows that the "V" in "DVD" stands for "versatile!" :)

Damn. You beat me to it.

"Risky Business: Tighty Whitey Edition"

Not bad. I think they also need to stay away from HD DVD to keep confusion down.

Realistically speaking, I think they'll just keep Blu-ray Disc. And they should. There had been enough confusion already. Changing the name will only add to that confusion.

Before the Wii came out, everybody made fun of that name. Now, almost no one makes a stink about the name. And just about everyone is wanting to get one (despite the funny name).

I agree. I don't think there's anything wrong with the name "Blu-Ray", really. They just need to keep on referring to it as "Blu-Ray Disc" in order to hammer it into the general public's collective heads that it is a disc format and not a PS3 format.

As usual, I think Nintendo's clever marketing helped overcome the perceived silliness of that name. The two Japanese executives bowing and saying "Wii would like to play." Very clever ad, if you ask me.

The BDA needs to come up with something as clever, and then their name will be on every tongue. And maybe, as much as one of my earlier posts was in jest, they should get Don LaFontaine (the famous "In a world..." voice-over guy) to do some promos for them. It worked for Geico. Well, everything seems to work for Geico. ;)

That's why the word was able to be trademarked, because "blu" isn't a real word. They couldn't trademark "Blue-ray", otherwise I'm sure that they would have went with that.

That isn't anal retentive, it's just myopic. Except for the part about your own name, that's just dense. You do know that the dictionary on your PC is only for you, right?

I like Blu-ray, because it is a new name in the shiny media disc biz. I'm tired of slight changes that confuse the hell out of everyone. Just call it something else so it can easily be differentiated for the masses. No doubt that was Sony's thinking as well. Now, I'm not too fond of Sony so I'm really not happy about agreeing with them, but what can you do?

BTW, anal-retentive should have a hyphen between anal and retentive. :D :D :D