What is the abbreviation for Digital Video Disc?

[nikl]

Hi everybody!

I just got this question when registering and first thought that it's some kind of joke where there's no way of giving a correct reply. But since DVD was accepted, it seems somebody simply screwed up. Its Digital Versatile Disc of course and I know you knew!

[filmboss80]

MOST of us HERE know what DVD stands for, but the average joe's misconception that the V is for "video" is understandable...and harmless.

[yoda313]

Isn't that more of a semantics question? I don't know that there was ever a 100% consensus from the video bigwigs of what dvd should stand for. i think thats why digital versatile disc and digital video disc have been floating around.

In the end it doesn't really matter. It's almost like whether or not you pronounce caramel with a long or short "a" or how you say tomato. Granted it is a bit more complex than those examples but in the end does it really matter? You know what somebody is talking about either way.

[Supreme2k]

Don't get me started on "care-eh-mell" vs. "car-mull"

[manono]

I just got this question when registering and first thought that it's some kind of joke where there's no way of giving a correct reply. But since DVD was accepted, it seems somebody simply screwed up. Its Digital Versatile Disc of course and I know you knew!

You might not know quite as much as you think you know:

[1.1.1] What do the letters DVD stand for?

All of the following have been proposed as the words behind the letters DVD.

Delayed, very delayed (referring to the many late releases of DVD formats)
Diversified, very diversified (referring to the proliferation of recordable formats and other spinoffs)
Digital venereal disease (referring to piracy and copying of DVDs)
Dead, very dead (from naysayers who predicted DVD would never take off)
Digital video disc (the original meaning proposed by some of DVD's creators)
Digital versatile disc (a meaning later proposed by some of DVD's creators)
Nothing
And the official answer is... "nothing." The original initialism came from "digital video disc." Some members of the DVD Forum (see 6.1) tried to express how DVD goes far beyond video by retrofitting the painfully contorted phrase "digital versatile disc," but this has never been officially accepted by the DVD Forum as a whole. A report from DVD Forum Steering Committee in 1999 decreed that DVD, as an international standard, is simply three letters. Nevertheless, Toshiba —the maintainer of the DVD Forum Web site— still confusingly prefers "digital video disc." And after all, how many people ask what VHS stands for? (Guess what? No one agrees on that one either.)

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.1

[bendixG15]

Found this definition somewhere ......

DVD once stood for digital video disc or digital versatile disc, but now it just stands for DVD -- the next generation of optical disc storage technology. DVD is essentially a bigger, faster CD that can hold cinema-like video, better-than-CD audio, and computer data. DVD Demystified FAQ.


(Thank you Baldrick ..... )

[redwudz]

This isn't really site feedback. Moving to Media.

[nikl]

Interesting - I never knew this! All I had ever heard was Digital Versatile Disc, but of course you're all right - who honestly cares?
I simply thought it was a mistake and tried to be a smartass about it. Mission failed..

[filmboss80]

All the early video industry tech papers that I read (way back when the technology was new) called it Digital Versatile Disc. So I'm not positive that the DVD Demystified FAQ is absolute gospel. But like we've said...so what?