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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

The CD is the compact disc, of course.

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.

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.

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

VGA, or Video Graphics Array, is an outdated analog video standard now surpassed by superior digital options like DVI and HDMI.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.