A tape cartridge, also known as a tape cart, is a storage medium used for audio recording, video recording, or data storage that includes a magnetic tape housed in a plastic unit that contains a single reel for the tape.
The format has become obsolete as an audio and video format but still remains in use for data storage for enterprise and commercial use with new formats and enhanced updates still being released.
Magnetic-tape data storage is a system for storing digital information on magnetic tape using digital recording. Commercial magnetic tape products used for data storage were first released in the 1950s and have continued to be developed and released to the present day.
Tape was an important medium for primary data storage in early computers, typically using large open reels of 7-track, later 9-track tape. Modern magnetic tape is most commonly packaged in cartridges and cassettes, such as the widely supported Linear Tape-Open (LTO) and IBM 3592 series. The device that performs the writing or reading of data is called a tape drive. Autoloaders and tape libraries are often used to automate cartridge handling and exchange. Compatibility was important to enable transferring data.
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. The tape can come in stand-alone tape reel or inside a casing such as a tape cartridge or cassette. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette recorders (VCRs) and camcorders. Videotapes have also been used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram.
Because video signals have a very high bandwidth, and stationary heads would require extremely high tape speeds, in most cases, a helical-scan video head rotates against the moving tape to record the data in two dimensions.
The following is a list providing an overview of all the different tape cartridge and cassette formats that use magnetic tape. Both "cassette" and "cartridge" refer to a small plastic unit containing a length of magnetic tape on at least one reel. The unit may contain a second "take-up" reel or interoperate with such a reel in an associated tape drive. At least 142 distinct types have been known to exist.
The phrase cassette tape is ambiguous in that there is no common dictionary definition so depending upon usage it has many different meanings, as for example any one the one of 106 different types of audio cassettes, video cassettes or data cassettes listed at The Museum of Obsolete Media.
Audiotape is magnetic tape used for storing audio. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Audiotape can be used in various tape recorders including machines for reel-to-reel audio tape recording on open reels or they can be enclosed in cases that only have one reel (tape cartridge) or two reels (cassette).