precisely what is meant by "video tapes"

With all of the stories that i've read about the destruction of the torture videotapes that i've read, it feels like something is missing. It's hard to be motivated to do this, as this scandal will come to nothing just like every other scandal in the Bush administration. However, it feels necessary to track down the original request for these tapes and to examine the statements about the destruction of the tapes more carefully.

After the way that the Bush administration has handled the Iraq War, and the NIE on Iran's nuclear program, and the way that they have deleted all of their own emails, I suspect that the actual video of the events still exist. All of the stories talk about the destruction of video tapes. These bastards are so deceitful that they very well could have just transferred them to a digital file, or to film, and refuse to hand them over because they are not VHS.

It sounds preposterous, but how far away is this from their usual tactics? Absolutely nothing they say has any bearing on reality.