What's ahead in home entertainment: trends in DVD, digital music, and more.(Tests & Trends)(Industry Overview)

What innovations are expected in home-entertainment stores this year? The answers emerge every January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, with its acre upon acre of audio and video gear. This year's show offered nothing revolutionary--except, some young consumers might argue, for Microsoft's Xbox, the company's new foray into video games. But here are some significant evolutions we noted as we roamed the exhibits:

More choice in DVD players. HDTV--the emerging, ultra-detailed television format--remains hampered in its growth (see page 16), but the DVD player will be even more ubiquitous this year than last. By late 2001, you'll find more players built into other components, such as VCRs and TVs, and more that also play MP3 files burned onto a disc. Prices will drop to as low as $300 for players with "progressive scan," which can produce a superior picture when used with some costly TVs (including all HDTVs), and will climb to a still-hefty $2,000 and up for players that also have recording capability.

Other DVD developments include camcorders that record onto miniature DVDs, from Panasonic and Hitachi, and the debut of players that support DVD Audio, a new multichannel music format that now has a small number of titles on the market.

More ways to hear digital music. MP3 players will continue to shrink in size and grow in storage capacity--and still more storage media will emerge, including the low-priced DataPlay disc and the postage-stamp-sized SD Memory Card. More players will be built into ...