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Here’s the FFmpeg documentation for x264, an open source h.264 encoder: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264
So the encoding strategy is tunable for an encoder, but also there are different implementations that might perform differently. They all produce a h.264 video stream that’s decodable by any standard player.
That’s the guts of the article, since it acknowledges this has been in place since Russel T Davies’ first season as lead writer in the mid 2000s. The part I liked about it is the classic sci-fi method of making it seem absurd to the main characters that the people in the past would think this is scandalous. Other than that it was an all-round good episode with a fun story.