Home Theater Lingo Quiz

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About This Quiz

HD, DVD, LCD. What do all of these acronyms stand for anyway? See if you're up on your home theater jargon in our home theater lingo quiz.

This media format succeeded the VHS tape as the most popular format for distributing movies, but what does its name stand for?

The DVD, or Digital Video Disc, was the premiere optical medium for storing movies until the arrival of Blu-ray.

Speaking of VHS, the tape format was used for home video for years. But do you know what VHS means?

VHS stands for Video Home System. And that's exactly what it was until DVDs took over in the late '90s.

Before VHS became standard, it battled with another tape format for dominance of the home video market. What was it called?

Betamax lost to VHS despite being a higher-quality format; VHS was more readily available and cheaper.

Surround sound sure pumps out a lot of noise. How many channels of audio are there in Dolby Digital 7.1 Surround?

Dolby 7.1 is comprised of eight sound channels -- seven for the surround audio and one channel for the subwoofer. That's what the .1 stands for.

How many subwoofers would there be in a 7.2 surround sound configuration?

The .2 designates two subwoofers. That's twice as much bass as your average setup.

This sound certification is actually named after a movie written and directed by George Lucas before he made "Star Wars."

George Lucas' first major film, "THX 1138," was the basis for the high-quality audio standard today known as THX.

Unlike DVD, Blu-ray isn't an acronym for anything. But do you know how it got its name?

Blu-ray is so-named due to the blue laser used to read the high-capacity Blu-ray discs.

Blu-ray beat out this video disc format to become the DVD's true successor. What was it called?

Blu-ray and HD-DVD were on the market side-by-side for a couple years, but eventually market support sided with Blu-ray.

The short-lived HD-DVD was primarily pushed by Toshiba and Microsoft. What did its name stand for?

The HD-DVD, aka the High Definition DVD, is now a format war loser much like Betamax.

Here's a classic format: Can you expand on the acronym CD?

The CD is the compact disc, of course.

802.11 is a technology standard involving the Internet. Do you know what it relates to?

802.11 is the standard used in wireless Internet, aka Wi-Fi. Today's wireless devices primarily use the 802.11g and 802.11n standards.

Today's high definition televisions come in two resolutions: 720p and 1080p. But what does that "p" stand for?

The "p" in 720p and 1080p stands for progressive, which means each line of the image is scanned progressively. Progressive displays are superior to interlaced displays, which resolve every other line of the image and take two passes to complete the picture.

Full HD is another term for this resolution.

1080p. While display technology can easily exceed resolutions of 1920x1080 pixels (1080p), it was established as the premiere HD resolution for televisions.

Once the most popular interface for transferring video signals, this old analog standard will soon be phased out of the computer industry.

VGA, or Video Graphics Array, is an outdated analog video standard now surpassed by superior digital options like DVI and HDMI.

HDMI is the current standard format for transferring high-definition signals between devices. But what does it mean?

HDMI, or High Definition Media Interface, can transfer uncompressed HD video and audio.

Unlike this other popular digital high definition interface, HDMI can transfer both audio and video.

All three of these formats are video-only, but DVI is the only one that's digital, rather than analog. DVI is another popular interface for computer systems.

LCDs are the dominant displays in big-screen televisions. Do you know what an LCD is?

An LCD is a Liquid Crystal Display, which modulates light to display an image.

Some LCD displays are lit up by OLEDs. OLED LCDs -- what are those?

OLEDs are organic light-emitting diodes that don't need backlighting, and thus can be used to create thinner displays with superior contrast.

You'll need either cable Internet or DSL to stream video to your home. But what does the latter high-speed Internet acronym stand for?

DSL, or a Digital Subscriber Line, is a broadband Internet service run to your home from an Internet Service Provider.

Cable and satellite boxes, as well as other media-playing home theater devices, are often called STBs, or:

STB, or set-top box, is a general term used to describe a device that connects to a TV and provides some form of content.

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