The latest trend among CamCorder makers to directly record video in MPEG-2/4 format has been recently doubling annual demand for 8sm DVD-R/+R discs.

The first cam-coder to record in MPEG-2 format was indeed a Hitachi (DVD-RAM) offering, years ago. CDRInfo.com was, of course, the first web-site at that time to present a comprehensive review of this camera.

Now, almost all major Japanese makers, including Hitachi, Canon, JVC, Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba, already produce or are to produce very soon offerings able to record on 8cm DVD-R/+RW media. There are many reasons for this current trend.

First, small, low power consumption electronics have made the direct encoding of recorded video into MPEG-2 reliable and relatively cheap. The DVD format is extremely portable and popular, so it looks very familiar to end-users. Desktop tools for editing MPEG-2 videos are in plethora in the market. The 8cm media are able to reproduce recorded content on virtually any exiting DVD player in just moments. 8cm discs, a DVD extended standard, is also preferred for reasons of weight and miniaturization.

Hence there is already a year-by-year increased demand for 8cm DVD media. Both recordable and rewritable, dash and plus media are in high demand. Users who are, of course, highly worried about the quality of the media used for videotaping their private content, tend to prefer quality media form major European and Japanese makers, for reasons of durability in the course of time.

Most reviewed readers have expressed the opinion that "... a few more cents worth their spending when one wants to reliability and high quality for recording his personal moments..." Discs from cheap media makers from Taiwan and China are certainly avoided by these users. Companies from these countries usually push into the market big quantities of discs without any quality control or in some cases, like Ritek, CMC, Princo and others, they use alternate names for distributing through alternative channels even those discs most other makers would have considered crap.

Please stay tuned to this web site for more related reviews and tests in the coming weeks...