And plenty more consumer products will add features formerly found only in separate devices.
More DVD players will be able to play audio DVDs or the CDs that people burn themselves. The DVD-VCR combinations that were runaway successes this year for companies like Samsung or SONICblue will see more competition.
DVD players had the Midas touch even during this year's slump, proving Americans still have a love affair with home entertainment -- if the price is right.
Sales of digital televisions and home theater systems also grew sharply this year and should rise again in 2002, driven by consumer desires to take advantage of the better picture and sound quality DVDs offer.
And with the arrival of Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's Game Cube this holiday season, analysts predict game consoles sell well in the coming year.
"Consumers will pay for entertainment, and more and more people are looking for entertainment at home," said PJ McNealy, an industry analyst at Gartner G2.
High-tech innovations that have met with limited acceptance -- Web tablets, interactive TV, personal digital video recorders -- will try again next year.
Tablets will be slimmer and lighter. Interactive TV features will increasingly be built into cable or satellite set-top boxes.
The same integrated approach is expected for DVRs, the TiVo or ReplayTV-like devices that allow television viewers to record shows onto a hard disk and pause live programming.
In other words, even Internet appliances that had short shelf lives this year will likely reappear in other forms.
"They just morph," said Michelle Abraham, senior analyst at Cahners In-Stat Group market research firm.
"The technology doesn't go away. It just gets recast in another type of product."
RSS