Just when you think you got all the formats down to a science, they invent something new. In the world of CD-ROM and DVD recording, we’ve all plodded through the –Rs, +Rs and whatever Rs. Now the have taken the Mini CD-R and made the mini DVD-R! Amazing. At about 3” across and 1.4 GB in size, the diminutive DVD-R can store up to 30 minutes of quality video and audio. Thirty minutes may not sound like much, but this is full blown DVD quality, NTSC video that you can play on your computer or television set-top player. You can now slip a mini DVD-R into a paper sleeve, place that in a standard envelope along with a letter and mail the entire package for $0.37. Remember how much it cost to send a VHS tape through the mail?

I know…the first thing that come to mind is you would have to get a new DVD player (or recorder) to use the new disk. As it turns out, if you open the DVD tray on your set-top player or recorder, the tray already has the cut out for the smaller DVDs.

The powers to be haven’t left out the CD-ROM either! There is now available a hybrid DVD/CD-ROM that is a DVD on one side and a CD-ROM on the other. Show your high quality video on one side and place your PDF files, etc on the other. Wow!