Seven is the new six
There's bound to be a smattering of new and recently announced 7-megapixel cameras, such as the Casio Exilim EX-P700, as well as the usual variety of smaller/faster/better 5- and 6-megapixel models. We also hope to see--and play with--some of the digital SLRs announced over the past couple of months, such as the Olympus E-Volt and the Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D.

With all those images piling up, digital photo storage and archiving has suddenly become a big growth area, and we wouldn't be surprised to run into a plethora of devices--both standalone and integrated into other products--that allow you to transfer images directly from a camera or media card to a CD or DVD. Watch for Alera's Digital Photo Copy Cruiser Plus and CD Digital Photo Copy Station, Pacific Image Electronics' PrimeFoto, and the Procare ePhoto.

Video blues
Storage is also a hot topic for digital video. We expect to hear a bit about Blu-ray optical discs and camcorders. In October, the Blu-ray Disc Association announced an 8cm version of the disc that can hold 15GB per layer; that should be able to store almost 3.5 hours of highest-quality video per side, compared to the current 20 minutes.

Another form of MPEG-based recording should also have a large presence at the show: solid-state camcorders that use flash memory to record MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 video. Aiptek's PocketDV 5300 is one newcomer. Solid-state cameras aren't new, but a variety of factors have kept them from hitting the big time, especially steep memory prices. But with 1GB capacities now selling for less than $100 and 4GB chips in production this year, storage prices are becoming moot.

Budget camcorders are a CES staple, and we expect to see several new designs. Hopefully, they'll have higher resolutions, and the current crop of 690,000-pixel models will drop down the line. Sony's current rebates on its DCR-DVD101 and DVD201 DVD-recordable camcorders signal an imminent update to that line, and Panasonic will likely be refreshing its DVD-RAM models as well. HD is still a bit of a wild card in consumer camcorders--is this the year for true 16:9 support to become a standard feature in camcorders with high-resolution sensors? We certainly hope so.