Digital storage media in the digital highway era

Consumer-use digital VCRs and video discs have been developed integrating state-of-the-art magnetic and optical recording technologies and sophisticated video compression algorithms. The latter were made practical by the remarkable progress of semiconductor technology. For the future evolution of digital storage media, further improvement of the compression algorithm is essential. Low-power low-cost VLSI logic and memory technology, and logic-memory compatible process technology are keys for realization of the next-generation compression algorithm and digital storage media. A future dream for digital storage media is an all-solid-state consumer video recorder, that will become available sometime in the 21st century. When and how depend very much on the diligent efforts of semiconductor and digital signal-processing engineers.