Depending upon what you're doing, reading tape can be the same thing as reading a chart without time-frame cutoffs. (In it's simplest form) What are you trying to do?
"Tape reading" or "reading order flow" allows you to see the small moves that a market like the ES gives up on a consistent, daily basis. I'm no pro so I am hesitant to comment. All I do is watch the order flow in IB's Book Trader. My thoughts are that indicators on a chart lag just a simple price chart and that a simple price chart lags behind the action seen on a DOM ladder. Perhaps there are faster, more reliable sources of price data than what IB offers. I'd be interested in hearing about those.
You can tape read ANYTHING that has Price and Volume. I attached a recent article from Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities that Mav posted in another thread it pertains to stocks but can be applied to any market with price and volume.
Reading a tape in futures. You guys are joking right? What is any better than watching PRICE? How in heck can so called reading T & Sales, dome or other crap tell you what big order will come in next and move a stock index futs by 5 handles? By watching price and price only you can tell where the FEAR or GREED factors will make the traders in the mkt or those that want in the mkt to either tighten up the cheeks of their ass or make their eyeballs popout with glee. Know price, know levels, know fear and greed of the positions and new positions and you are good to go. Price gets attention, all else follows price. Look, trade one index futs and get to know that better than the wife and you will do yourself a huge treat. We all know no man has ever been able to handle more than one women at a time without losing both. Learn how to handle one item at a a time and learn it well. after you get consistent with a single item, then play the field. .. KISS works, kiss is not used but by older winner traders because the new blood thinks it must be some magic to decyphering the SECRETS of the mkt because 90% lose, hate to tell ya but 90% lose because they never allow themself to never progress the "SEARCHING" stage of the game. KISS is maybe hardest to learn .