Something that has taken the video world by storm over the past few years is memory card-based camcorders. The promise of higher durability and fewer moving parts is winning a lot of fans among consumers and manufacturers alike. One hurdle that has fallen is that Flash memory only recently became fast enough to reliably record data at the speeds that are demanded by video streams.

The beauty of it, though, is that SD/SDHC, MultiMedia Card and Memory Stick (in its many permutations) are easy to get and not very expensive anymore. The downside is that all of the cards are downright tiny - losing them is a very real worry, unless you are very well-organized.

In the same vein, Panasonic's P2 cards use several Flash devices in tandem to achieve the bandwidth needed for handling gently-compressed high-definition video. Sony and SanDisk used the same rationale while developing the competing SxS system.

The future brings the promise of holographic media. One of the most-likely systems for adoption, Holographic Versatile Disc, may be able to hold up to 3.9 terabytes on a standard-sized (12cm) disc. Initial cost is a problem (of course), and the fact that the current system requires a relatively high-powered green laser also makes for an interesting engineering challenge. However, considering that Blu-ray Disc brought blue laser technology to the masses (even though Blu-ray Disc media and drives are hardly commodity items yet), we look forward to seeing how the challenge will be solved.

Charles Fulton is Videomaker's Associate Editor.

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