Cine film, slides, cassettes: a plain-English guide to what you might find in an old box
You've opened a box of family media and you're not sure what half of it is. This is a quick illustrated glossary.
6 min read
A quick reference guide for anyone opening an old family media box for the first time.
Prints
Any paper photograph. From tiny 2×3-inch matte prints of the 1930s to 10×8 studio portraits, they all count. Look at the back for a developer's stamp — often the best clue to when it was taken.
35mm slides
Small transparent squares in cardboard or plastic mounts, usually 2×2 inches. You hold them up to the light to see the image. Yellow Kodak boxes are the classic giveaway.
Negatives
The reverse-tone strips of film that came back from the chemist with your prints. Colour negs look orange; black-and-white negs look grey. Both are worth keeping — a scan of a negative is usually higher quality than a scan of the print.
VHS
Full-size video cassettes, roughly the size of a hardback book. The tape inside is the same as their smaller cousins.
VHS-C, Video8, Hi8, MiniDV
The smaller camcorder tapes. VHS-C is a stubby VHS look-alike. Video8 and Hi8 are the size of an audio cassette. MiniDV is smaller again, roughly the size of a matchbox, and often looks nearly digital.
Audio cassettes
The classic C60 / C90 tapes. Family recordings on cassette are surprisingly common — birthdays, church services, and old radio programmes.
8mm and Super 8 cine film
Small reels of physical film, usually in a round metal or plastic tin. Silent unless there's a magnetic stripe along the edge.
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If you're not sure what you've got, send us a photo of the box and we'll tell you before you commit to anything.
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