> What do we lose and what do we gain? I think there can only be loss or at best parity. The problem I see are faulty or simplistic assumptions being made by

> What do we lose and what do we gain? I think there can only be loss or at best parity. The problem I see are faulty or simplistic assumptions being made by the translators and subsequent loss of information in the archive when the originals are discarded. A new format may allow faithful reproduction of primary intention but disregard others. An obvious example is metadata. For example with photo or video, loss of information on things such as exposure, lens type not to mention camera model/make can be devastating to some uses of the file. Esoterica that "can't possible be useful" can actually be critical to some. Of course, it is fine to apply some destructive translation in a transient manner, such as your example of consumption by an output device. The problem is assuming there is exactly one type of output "device".