Taking a page from the politicians, the DVD Forum decided to try to make everyone happy and just made things worse in the process:

Re-recordable HD DVD discs will be branded ‘HD DVD-RW’, the DVD Forum confirmed at its most recent steering committe last week. But in a move which would seem to be calculated to win support from as many firms as possible, the Forum also said re-writeable discs will be branded ‘HD DVD-RAM’. They were originally supposed to be called ‘HD DVD-RW’.

Okay. So we have two formats where we had one. They’re really just the same underneath, right? Well…

The disc that was formerly called HD DVD-RW is largely founded on DVD-RAM, whereas the format that will now be known as HD DVD-RW is more basic and, we understand, more suitable for a dual-layer version.

Huh? Just pick a format, man! What’s up with this? At least Blu-ray makes it a little more clear: BD-ROM, BR-R, and BD-RE. No BD-RAM there, thank goodness.

The Register - DVD Forum approves twin rewriteable HD DVD formats