The three major proprietary formats--Windows Media, RealAudio, and QuickTime--now offer lossless codecs for use with archiving as well as streaming. The usual caveats related to proprietary formats apply here as well: the sponsoring companies may offer encoding software, and their popular media players (Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, Quicktime Player) may be able to play back the files, but if the sponsoring company were to discontinue support for the format, users would likely be left to rely on legacy software.