Instead of popping in a tape when you want to record a show, imagine being able to use a disc that looks like a CD. And the new DVD re-writables coming to market later this year will let you record on them over and over again. At Philips, Mark Poldervaart is with the DVD plus RW group. So why is it better than video tape?

"The benefit of that is that next to digital picture and sound quality it will bring to persons who are recording television programs, what it also will give you is that DVD+RW from Philips is compatible with DVD video. And that means that the recordings you make in your recorder can be played back in existing DVD video players."

Sounds great. All except for the price. About two thousand dollars or so. But that will come down. And there's another issue to be resolved here. One group of manufacturers is using the DVD+RW standard... another, led by Pioneer, is coming out with DVD-RW. Sounds like BETA Vs. VHS all over again, but Pioneer's Chris Walker predicts...

"We plan in the market place having five million of these machines in consumers' households by the year 2003 and by the year 2005 we anticipate this will be the preferred method of recording."

You can find more info at dvdforum.com. You can find us at Bootcamp.com. Bootcamp, I'm Fred Fishkin for CBS News.