Michael Antonoff

Microsoft has sided with Toshiba and Intel in the next-generation-DVD format war.

Sony DCR-SR100 hard-disk camcorder with ECMHW1 wireless microphone

JVC may have started a trend with its Everio line of hard disk-based camcorders. Toshiba and Sony at CES on Wednesday announced models that banish the tapes and discs home video enthusiasts tote like Kleenex and equipped the cameras instead with internal hard drives.

Not too long ago, if you wanted to record an HDTV program, you had to take a quaint step back in time and use a VCR - a digital VCR, but still a VCR. Today, there are a number of hard-disk options for recording HD, but if you want to save the program so it won't be accidentally erased from the hard drive, you have to resort to - you guessed it - a VCR.

Even before Apple's iPod changed the way we listen to music on the go, audio hard-disk recorders - also called music servers - were altering how we store and listen to music at home. When ReQuest Multimedia christened the category with its ARQ1 some five years ago, the promise of putting away all your CDs and having any song accessible by the push of a button seemed too good to be true.