Back around '96 I was working in an A/V department and TV studio ...and they still had these old Ampex video machines that used 2" tape. At the time, we were shooting with Sony Betacams on 1/2" tape, and doing editing either on Sony analog systems or on some of the new Avid digital systems that had recently been added...but...the old Ampex machines were still used when we needed to pull some archived footage off those 2" reels.
I'm not sure if the formulation of those Ampex 2" video tapes is the same as the 2" audio tapes...probably very similar, just made to deal with the differences in signal types...but anyway, they were fun to use. HUGE machines that stood up vertically, and you had the TV monitors so you could monitor the tapes.
Then one day, we got a new guy in charge...and he suddenly wanted to go all-digital.
So...no shit...out went all the old Ampex gear, all the 2" tapes, and we also had tons of 16mm film archives and machines with all kinds of historic stuff of them...and he literally just had it all rolled out and tossed.
I left shortly after that and moved over to the multimedia department....not because of the switch to digital, it was just a mellower atmosphere in multimedia...
...but I really liked camera work a lot. Did a bunch of sports shoots, mostly football (college stuff), got to travel to a few states....though I wouldn't do it today. It was a lot of work...hauling those massive Betacams, and 30lbs of battery packs around my waist...plus it was always a 4-5 AM start to get set up.
Sometimes I shot off a tripod in one location...other times I was always on the move...very labor intensive...but I liked those Sony cameras more than the small digital stuff they got later. You could do nice steady shots with the bigger cameras....the small digital stuff would twitch if you took a deep breath.
Anyway...those are all lost tapes now...the 2" stuff...the 16mm film (ok not tape)...and even most of the Betacam tapes are probably gone at this point...at some landfill, I'm sure.