Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

Engadget

FEATURES: Holiday Gift Guide 3D tech comes home
  • CA
  • Member Since Mar 21st, 2008
Blog Activity
Blog# of Comments
Engadget HD4 Comments

Recent Comments:

Cool project. Looking at the electronics bundle, resolution is 1280x768 for the LCD used. I imagine brightness and contrast are limited, and there might be a hot-spot issue, but probably good enough for those looking to do something on the cheap.
Canada's first movie download service? Um what about iTunes/Apple TV? I've been downloading movies from there legally for quite some time now.

I would welcome more entrants in this area, and more content... I'd hardly say this was going to be "Canada's first" movie download service. Unless of course by "Canada's fist" you mean home grown. But then again CinemaNow isn't a Canadian company, so it wouldn't really be a home grown service.
Note that I said the trademark DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disk, and was formerly known as Digital Video Disk. This is because when DVD first hit the market, it was billed as Digital Video Disk, it was only when PC DVD burners started hitting the market did the "V" get changed to "versatile" to better represent the multi-use capabilities of the format.

"DVD" is ALSO a generic acronym for "Digital Video Disk"

The comment was in reference to the ITC's use of HD DVD, which was likely for generic "High Definition Digital Video Disk" players. Meant to encompass all High-Def digital video formats stored on [optical] disks, and not specifically the "HD DVD" format.

Thus the trademark collision I was referring to was not "HD DVD" with "DVD", but once again the ITC's generic use of "HD DVD" in the document (covering BluRay, and other formats) with the now defunct "HD DVD" format. It was an unfortunate use of the acronym, because it does collide with a trademark.

I won't even get into disk contents, as that is not what was being talked about here. The comments are in context of the article, not a general discussion on the various formats, and what they are capable of carrying. But yes, one can put anything on the disk, as it is all basically data at the lowest level. I never implied anything different.
"DVD" (Digital Video Disk) has become a generic term for video discs in general, even though it is a trademark for a specific format (Digital Versatile Disk [formerly Digital Video Disk]). Just as Aspirin is the common term for many ASA based drugs (and even some non-ASA based ones) even though it's a specific brand name.

I would tend to agree with MHAithaca that when the ITC used the term "HD DVD" they meant "High Definition Digital Video Disks" in the general sense and not the specific, and dead, format. It is an accurate term, that unfortunately collides with a trademark (which is likely why Toshiba chose the name in the first place).

Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"I just moved into a new apartment and have been reading about all of the new power strips out there, especially the green ones. I was wondering if you had any suggestions about which "green "power strips are out there with decent joules ratings. And when I say green, I mean power strips that have the remotes or switches to turn off all electricity flowing to certain plugs and with at least 2 plugs that are always on. I was looking specifically at sub $50 because I will need two, but if that is not possible I could be convinced otherwise. Thanks!"

Boss of the Year Entry Form

Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.