Movie and Video records of family history

Movie Film formats:

35mm--usually used for professional/Hollywood movies.

16mm--first commercially successful home movies format. Invented by Kodak.

8mm or "Standard 8"-- introduced by Kodak during the Great Depression as a cheeper alternative to 16mm. The original 8mm used 16mm film, which was run down one half, then flipped over and the other half was filmed. During processing, the film was split and spliced together. 8mm was really successful.

Super 8- in the 1960's, Kodak released the Super 8 format. It was 8mm film, but instead of using a reel of 16mm film, the film was 8mm size and came in plastic cassettes for easy loading. In 1973, Kodak came out with Super 8 film with sound recording also.

Video Formats
VHS or Betamax tape--The first consumer video cameras(soon named camcorder) were either VHS or Betamax based with a separate camera and recorder, connected by a cable.