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A comment on Ask HN: Video streaming is expensive yet YouTube "seems" to do it for free. How?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Video streaming is expensive yet YouTube "seems" ... by Jyaif on Sunday May 19, 2024 @04:48PM (#40409639)
Yes, it's inevitable.

My guess is that the first step will be to re-encode all the non-popular videos with severe lossy compression.

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Re:Ask HN: Video streaming is expensive yet YouTube "seems" ... by londons_explore on Sunday May 19, 2024 @06:36PM (#40410266)
They still keep the original uploaded files.

You know that because when they release a new format (eg. HDR or a different resolution), they re-encode from the original. Various people have tested that with moire patterns and various other ways to demonstrate if something was encoded more than once.

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