What Tape Is This?
You opened the box. It's full of tapes. Some are big, some are tiny, and none of them are labelled. Sound familiar?
The Visual Guide
VHS: The Big One
About the size of a paperback novel. If you grew up recording Saturday morning cartoons, this is probably what you used. VHS tapes degrade fastest, if yours are from the '80s or '90s, they need attention soon.
VHS-C: The Compact Cousin
Half the size of a VHS. Came with an adapter that let you play it in a regular VCR. Popular with early camcorders in the late '80s.
Hi8 & Video8: The Sony Standard
Small, roughly the size of an audio cassette. These were Sony's camcorder format and produced noticeably better picture than VHS-C.
MiniDV: The Digital Leap
Tiny tape, big quality. If your camcorder was from roughly 1995-2010, it probably used MiniDV. These captured digital video, but the tapes themselves are still fragile.
Betamax: The Rare Find
Similar size to VHS but slightly smaller. Sony's format lost the format war, but plenty of families recorded on Beta through the early '80s.
Bring your mystery tapes to the workshop. I've handled every format produced since the 1960s and can identify yours in seconds, no charge.
8mm Film & Super 8: No Magnetic Tape at All
If it's on a small metal or plastic reel and you can see images when you hold it up to light, it's film, not tape. These are the oldest and most fragile format, often containing footage from the '60s and '70s that exists nowhere else.
- Paperback-sized: VHS or Betamax
- Half that size: VHS-C
- Audio cassette-sized: Hi8 / Video8
- Tiny cassette: MiniDV
- On a reel: 8mm or Super 8 film