Hi8 & Digital 8 tapes were introduced in the era just prior to complete digital formats taking over the film and video industry. During the time frame of Hi8 and Digital 8, consumers saw a preview of what was possible by improving picture and sound quality for the home video recording market. It was also part of the evolution of the 8mm video format that helped create more efficiency by providing a smaller size to the videotape. Despite these qualities and conveniences, converting Hi-8 videos to DVD is the smartest move in order to preserve any captured memories for the future.

Video8 and its variations were the last developments in the evolution of videotapes right up to when the digital era began. But where does that little 8 come from in the first place? It was an extension that gave a nod to 8mm that goes back to the earliest days when families captured special moments on film. Converting your old Video 8 tapes to DVD is possible in order to preserve the memories you may still have captured on them.

VHS-C was the first variation on the VHS videotape in the early 1980s after about six years of battling for market domination against Betamax. By 1982 VHS had largely won the market and began to make slight improvements, along with attempts to make the format smaller and more compact.

When S-VHS was first introduced to the world in 1987, it was touted as a significant improvement to the VHS format. Considering that the pixel limitations of VHS video stood at only 240 lines of horizontal resolution, the thought of nearly doubling that image quality was an exciting idea. The new format was dubbed "Super" VHS and S-VHS was born. When S-VHS made it from Japan to America in the late 1980s, it was expected to be a major evolutionary step forward in video technology with better picture and sound. Things turned out much differently, however.

A look at the history of U-Matic video tapes needs to include some of the what-ifs in the history of video itself. It's true the U-Matic tape was the real progenitor of the later videocassette based on how it was the first video to be placed in cassette form. Even though video had been around since the late 1950s in television production, the format was basically open reel and not easy to store. U-Matic gave a more convenient way to store video, even if they looked like oversized VHS tapes in the context of today.

The development of U-Matic, though, is one that could have brought commercial VCR's to the world much earlier than in the late 1970s and early '80s.

The story of Betamax video always has to be told with the adjunct of one particular group of letters: VHS. Or at least that's where the story ends and not quite where it begins. For those who weren't living when the videotape era began, there might be an assumption that VHS was first. The truth is, Betamax was the first commercially available videotape format a year before VHS was even introduced.

The origins of the name for this video format came from the Japanese word "beta" for recording signals and "max" coming from "maximum."

If you were to conduct a search of all the videos tucked away in various areas of your home, where would you find them? Chances are the first places you would look would be your computer's hard drive and perhaps an external hard drive or two. Then you would likely remember that "transfer VHS tapes to DVD" task you've been planning for the last several years.

It wouldn't take long for one important question to filter into your brain: What videos, both new and old, do I have that I want to preserve for the future, for my children and grandchildren? With this one question to guide you in your video search, let's see where else those important videos might be hiding.