Digital technology is enabling very rapid change in the television industry effecting every aspect of the process from scene to screen. This has already brought many benefits but also presents new challenges as the resulting far greater diversity in equipment endangers standards and compatibility. More recently disk drives have emerged as more flexible means of video storage. With rapid development continuing, their usage is bound to increase and to further influence both the production process and the way that programmes are put to air. Just how this evolves depends on the future specifications of the disk drives themselves. Changing the medium from disks to tape means fresh thought must be given to archiving. Here it is essential that a long term solution is found which can be applied across a wide range of applications and which will fit with the emerging range of disk-based equipment.