Granted maybe realplayer was a wrong example, but I know film conservationists who can tell you that there is a huge gap in their archive that stems from obscur

Granted maybe realplayer was a wrong example, but I know film conservationists who can tell you that there is a huge gap in their archive that stems from obscure digital formats that nobody has the funds for to reverse engineer. It is great if todays VLC plays your file. Just make sure to regularily check over the course of the next 50 years if that is still the case. If stable archival is your goal there not many things that beat lasering something onto physical film where in the worst of situations you'd be even able to look at the pictures with your own eyes and rebuilding a projector after the collapse of society is probably easier than rebuilding a computer running an OS that reads that disk with software that plays that file of which you might know precisely nothing without being able to decode it. This is why e.g. national archives use film for storage. Not that this is a feasible solution for the private person, but sometimes considering a low tech solution might be the least complicated "do and forget" option. If your ancestors find your bluray disks or some old hard drives they might find some challenges: - they might not know what those are - if they have an idea what those are, they might not have the connectors or devices needed to play them back - if they have the devices needed the device might not be able to read the file system because it is not supported anymore - if the filesystem is supported, the file format might not be This is a lot of hoops to jump through for something where you don't even know what is on it. Meanwhile a old picture book can be just looked at.