MPEG‑2 was the first codec that let me get true broadcast‑quality onto a storage medium that didn’t vanish overnight. It kept the original 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios intact, so I could archive the film exactly as it was meant to be seen. The bitrate was high enough that the loss of detail was barely noticeable, but the file size was still big enough to push a whole season of a classic series onto a single hard drive. I catalogued every MPEG‑2 file in my spreadsheet with a column for “bitrate used” and another for “compression ratio.” The only thing I hate about it is that the final video sometimes has that slight, annoying compression artifact in the corners, but for preserving the actual cinematic memory it’s still a reliable choice. And if you ever need a backup, just copy the MPEG‑2 file to three separate drives—one labeled “Red – High Risk,” one “Yellow – Medium Risk,” and one “Green – Low Risk.” That way, even if the cloud goes dark, the cinema lives on in crisp, unmodified form.

I’ll add the next layer with the same caution. H.264 gave me a lot more detail in a smaller package, but it’s still a lossy format, so I keep a copy in the old MPEG‑2 for reference. H.265 cuts the size even more but introduces a new compression signature that’s a little harder to decode on legacy players. AV1 is the newest kid on the block—perfect quality, super efficient, but its tooling is still catching up. I’ll map each codec’s pros and cons in my spreadsheet, with a column for “archive‑ready” and one for “cloud‑ready.” That way the map stays accurate and the cinematic memory stays safe, whether in the cloud or on my triple‑drive backup system.