SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ARCHIVING A MEDIA COLLECTION

A system and method for archiving a user's media collection are provided. In general, a central archiving system stores high-quality versions of a number of known media files and a number of known encoding algorithms. First, each media file in the user's media collection and an encoding algorithm used to encode each media file are classified as either known or unknown to the archiving server. For each known media file encoded with a known encoding algorithm, the archive includes information identifying the media file, information identifying the encoding algorithm for the media file, and optionally the one or more quality parameters such as bit rate, sampling frequency, and the like for the media file. For each unknown media file and/or media file encoded with an unknown CODEC or encoding algorithm, the archive includes the media file, which is uploaded and stored at the archiving system.