Blu-ray and HD DVD players will come out fighting this year. We reveal which format is best placed to be DVD’s successor.

There are almost as many acronyms for the various standards of DVD as there are companies involved in DVD development.

Burn straight onto a disc or choose the hybrid HDD model.

Sharp are finalising plans to commercially produce quad and triple layer Blu-ray discs capable of 100GB and 8x read speeds using new disc materials and improved laser technologies

HITACHI DZ-MV208E

Hitachi pioneered the idea of consumer cameras capable of recording video direct to DVD. The early models were large and relatively expensive but high quality. It has taken a while for the idea to take off but it is certainly gaining momentum with a number of competitors now coming into the market. Hitachi has responded by progressively making its cameras more compact and adding extra features such as a SD memory card for storing still images or compressed video clips.

DVD is said to be to movies what CD was to music. Well-filmed DVD movies are better in all respects than those recorded on VHS, so the idea of a digital video camera recording direct to DVD disc would appear sound.

There is not a huge difference between this and the MV550E. In fact, if you put them side by side you have to look closely to see the difference in looks, which is model number in small print on one side.

The fundamental design of the hard drive remains unchanged since the 1960s, but smaller = better in the new age.

A month's worth of HD news in digest form.

Hitachi pioneered the concept of recording digital video direct to DVD . Now into its third generation of DVD cameras, a few competitors have appeared on the horizon with its first generation models

Hitachi DZ-MV100E

8cm Blu-ray BD-R write-once and BD-RE rewritable discs due in September.

30 major consumer electronics firms under the spotlight.