The Future of Memory: A History of Lossless Format Standards in the Moving Image Archive (The History of Media and Communication) - Hardcover

Jones, Jimi; Jancovic, Marek

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 025204665X ISBN 13: 9780252046650

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2025

Synopsis

A new generation of video standards promises lossless storage of digital objects for future generations. Jimi Jones and Marek Jancovic document the development and adoption of JPEG 2000, FFV1, MXF, and Matroska while investigating the social and material aspects of their design and the forces driving their journeys from niche to ubiquity. Drawing on interviews with archivists and developers, Jones and Jancovic reveal the archive as a dynamic space where deeply entrenched social practices produce disagreements but also resourceful collaborations. They contrast the unprecedented rise of archivist-driven standardization and controversies around non-standard technology with the historical dominance of the film and broadcast industries. Throughout, the authors clarify the role of tech companies, software developers, film pirates, hackers, and other players with poorly understood roles in the process. A timely look at the state of audiovisual preservation, The Future of Memory provides a history of recent innovations alongside a snapshot of a field in the midst of profound technological change.

About this title

About the Author

Jimi Jones is an adjunct lecturer of library and information sciences for the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Marek Jancovic is an assistant professor of media studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is the author of A Media Epigraphy of Video Compression: Reading Traces of Decay.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 025204665X
• ISBN 13: 9780252046650
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216