In today’s world of rapidly developing technology,
there are an ever-increasing number of technical standards and formats.
And every time a new format is created, its creators suddenly find themselves tasked with
figuring out some way of distinguishing this format from all the other ones.
Now, often times you can use simple physical characteristics, but that doesn’t necessarily
indicate what the format is.
For example, compact discs and DVDs look virtually identical, and while an eagle-eyed person
obsessed with technological trivia can figure out the differences soon enough, it helps
to create some sort of logo.
This logo isn’t just there for identification purposes, either.
In its traditional use, it signifies compatibility with the technical specifications of the format.
For example, the venerable VHS cassette.
This mark isn’t simply descriptive.
It appears on all videocassette recorders that use the VHS specifications,
it appears on all videocassettes that use the VHS specifications,
and it doesn’t appear on cassettes or recorders
that don’t use the VHS specifications.
So, even though a quarter of a century passed between the manufacture of these two machines,
because they both have that little logo on it, we can rest assured that a recording made
with this machine will play on this machine, and vice versa.
And that’s the point to these labels.
Every format has some sort of mark for compatibility.
The Compact Disc logo indicates compatibility with Compact Disc players, and if I might
add I think that this logo is starting to dip into the retro-cool category.
Something about it is just a delightful mix of futuristic, retro, and wholesome...
*stares off into distance and gets distracted*
Anyway, yes this logo would get little additions underneath
it to distinguish all the various versions of CD that eventually came about,
but you’ll find this Compact Disc mark on any player designed to…
play them.
Just match up the symbol on the disc with the symbol on the player and you’ll be sure
of compatibility.
Same goes for DVD.
Does this disc have the DVD logo?
Well, so does your player.
Same goes for USB.
Do you see the pitchfork of knowledge?
Then that’s a USB device.
Of course, thunderbolt over USB-C (along with power delivery) is making this increasingly
more confusing but let’s hope we get that sorted soon.
And while we’re at it, thanks to Pioneer and their near-complete dominance over the
format, we call these things Laserdiscs without realizing that LaserDisc, and in particular
this logo, is what Pioneer decided to brand their players and discs following the Laservision
videodisc standard.
Guys, I’m trying to demonstrate the usefulness of these symbols
and here you are mucking it up.
The designers (and patent holders) of whatever system we’re talking about create these
symbols not only to demonstrate compatibility for the benefit of consumers,
but also to enforce it from manufactures
and collect those sweet, sweet licensing fees in the process.
[♫ upbeat promotional music ♫] Do YOU want to manufacture compact disc players?
Sweet!
Just pay us an exorbitant fee, and then we’ll give you the knowledge you need to build your
CD player!
Then, we’ll charge you a few dollars for each player you make, and then,
and ONLY then,
can you put our coveted little logo on it!
It does protect consumers, I guess,
but most importantly it makes us MONEY!
And it wasn’t just players.
As recently as 2001, Sony and Philips were collecting royalty fees for discs, too.
At that time, Philips got 1.8 cents per disc, and Sony got 1.2 cents per disc.
That might not seem like much, but considering how many copies of albums were being sold,
that’s still plenty huge.
For example, Linkin Park’s debut album Hybrid Theory sold 27 million copies worldwide, meaning
that Philips made nearly half a million dollars, and Sony raked in $324,000.
So while this little logo may seem like a simple compatibility mark, it was also a serious
money maker.
But now we come to the meat and potatoes of this video;
SD cards.
I think it’s safe to say that SD has come to prominence in the removable flash media market.
And just like all the other standards both flash and otherwise, SD uses a logo to both
ensure and enforce compatibility.
SD stands for Secure Digital, although I prefer to think of it as
Super Dope
and the SD Association
is who makes the rules.
The SDA is way less in it for the money, as they are a nonprofit group and only charge
$2,500 to join.
As far as I can tell, they don’t assess a fee to their members on a per-manufactured-card
basis to use that logo.
Their self-described function is as follows:
“The SD Association establishes the technical
and specification standards for SD memory card applications, continuously promotes SD
as the leading industry standard, and encourages the development of digital A/V, wireless communication,
and digital networking products that utilize the many unique benefits of SD standards.”
Fun stuff.
But, about that logo.
Why is the D in SD...
a disc?
I’m fairly confident that this isn’t a disc, but I’ll ask my sources.
Is this a disc?
No, it’s not a disc!
Is this a disc?
Yes all signs seem to indicate that this is indeed not a disc.
Well, that settles it.
Two out of two sources agree that this is not a disc.
So, um,
why is there a disc in the logo?
Well, you know how sometimes a company announces that they’re gonna develop a thing,
and then they put a lot of R&D effort into developing the thing,
but it turns out that another set of companies is ALSO developing a thing,
and now you’ve got a situation of two competing things?
[crickets chirping]
That happened in the developmental stages of DVD.
Philips and Sony were backing an updated version of their very own Compact Disc, which they
called the MultiMedia Compact Disc or MMCD.
Meanwhile, all of these other manufacturers were backing a different kind of disc.
That disc had a different name from MultiMedia Compact Disc.
See, what makes DVDs able to store more data than a CD is that the pits are packed more densely.
This new disc had a greater pit density than a CD.
In fact, you might say its density was kinda super.
It was a super density disc.
SD!
Toshiba designed this logo for use in the never realized Super Density disc.
I’ve mentioned this before in my video introducing the DVD and its murder of Laserdisc, but the
creation of the DVD standard hinged on the aforementioned companies coming to an agreement
on which format to use.
This agreement was in large part forced by computer companies, who envisioned using this
standard for data storage, and who didn’t want to pick sides
and wind up on the wrong one.
[crickets chirping]
When the companies agreed and morphed the competing standards into the one,
the only,
the glorious DVD,
suddenly Toshiba had this useless logo that they designed sitting around.
And, rather than be wasteful about it, they slapped it onto a new flash memory standard.
Sandisk and Matsushita partnered with Toshiba, and the Secure Digital format was born.
Just to add to the trivia, SD was essentially just a modification
of the earlier MultiMediaCard (MMC),
but support for DRM was added as part of its specifications.
It is likely (though I have not confirmed it) that its name was chosen because it was
designed to fit within the Secure Digital Music Initiative, which was essentially the
record industry’s last ditch effort to try and get tech companies to move away from MP3s
and into a more locked down standard.
It didn’t work, but the name stuck anyway.
From my perspective, it looks very much like Toshiba, having created this logo, set out
to make a new memory card standard, and the Secure Digital Music Initiative just sort
of fell into their laps.
They designed it to work within that initiative, and if music were to be distributed on cards,
it might be helpful to put a disc in the logo
because, you know,
that’s what music used to go on.
Anyway, regardless of what exactly transpired, we do know for sure that this logo is a leftover.
Perhaps you’ve never even noticed that the D is an optical disc.
I didn’t until I first read about it.
And to be fair, many designs don’t put the little lines through the D
so it’s harder to make the connection.
[Ding]
But now that we all know, we can laugh at the follies of the past, and be thankful
that the standard endures, with one unifying logo
letting us know everything we need to….
[sigh]
Jeez guys, how many more revisions are you gonna go through?
Won’t you ever be satisfied!
Isn’t half a terabyte on your fingernail enough!?
I mean really, we’ve got 4K TV now, how much more data are we gonna need?
Why don’t you just--
Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoyed this little explanation of the mysterious
disc in the discless format.
It’s not so much mysterious as much as it is a hand me down.
The remains of a project long ago abandoned, but which ended up being useful after all.
If a little thematically inconsistent.
As always, thank you to everyone who supports the channel on Patreon, especially the fine
folks you see scrolling up your screen.
With the generous support of people like you, Technology Connections has changed from my
weird little hobby to my actual job!
And I’m very grateful for your support.
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Thank you for your consideration, and I’ll see you next time!
♫ incomprehensibly smooth jazz ♫
[Sigh]
I got about half-way through the script before I realized that the camera wasn’t recording...
and it’s a shame because there were some great bloopers in there.
To my surprise, while going through DVDs to show the logo, I discovered that Disney DVDs
don’t actually use the official DVD logo.
They use their own “Disney DVD” thing, which makes me wonder just how they made/make
their DVDs.
Are they correctly licensed and the DVD association (now One-red) just lets them use their own
logo?
I can’t imagine Disney isn’t being above board, but I wonder just how their own logo
fits into the whole DVD ecosystem.
Ya know?
That’s prolly not a good use of that tense, and I didn’t even write it so, like…
where did that come from?
That’s a great question, Bertie.
Pioneer decided to call these things Laserdiscs without realizing…
[really long pause]
no.
No (more ominously).
And just like all the other standards, both flash and otherwise, SD--
people and their road rage, and interrupting my videos,
just calm down people.
The SDA is way-- eugh.
The SDA--
Distinguising this formblabelleughth