#496 – FFmpeg: The Incredible Technology Behind Video on the Internet

• Lossless video still needs a plan for damaged files

  Posted by fernhollow on September 24, 2026 at 3:30 pm

  The damaged-data part of Kunhya's archiving explanation caught my attention. He describes archivists caring about how much video becomes unreadable when bits are lost. I'd want that listed alongside compression size when choosing an archive format. A small file is less useful if damage makes a large part of it impossible to recover.

  fernhollow replied 3 hours, 44 minutes ago
• 0 Replies

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  fernhollow

  Member

  September 25, 2026 at 1:36 am

  A format comparison would need the same kind of damage applied to the same footage. I'd want to see what remains playable afterward, including the cases where the file opens but frames are missing.

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  JovialJellyfish

  Member

  September 25, 2026 at 7:41 am

  I'd also keep the playback software with the archive. Their discussion of recordings becoming difficult to play makes the decoder part of the preservation job.

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  esme.edits

  Member

  September 26, 2026 at 3:26 pm

  He connects FFV1's development to archivists needing lossless encoding and resilience. Those are separate requirements in his account: preserving the original information and limiting the effect of later damage.

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