The emergence of Beyond HD resolutions has triggered a new competition both in broadcast and cinema industries. ProRes, XAVC, AVC-Ultra, JPEG2000, HEVC, VP9... All these are 4K/UHD-supporting codecs. Manufacturers' marketing slides show excellent quality guarantees. However, these may concern a single-generation encoding/decoding. Reallife workflows imply more complicated parameters' configurations, especially in post-production. Mesclado's internal Lab for applied researches simulated a complete media chain, based on different production genres such as sport and fiction. Production, editing, mastering and distribution, each step is potentially being affected by a decoding-processing-encoding generation. Our goal is to objectively measure distortion levels between an original sample and its distributed version. We were able to identify good and sub-optimal codecs' combinations. We concluded by recommending good engineering practices to save both bandwidth and storage through the production process and to increase the delivered image quality through the conventional distribution channels. This work was conducted in partnership with Image Matters and direct involvement of Dwarf Animation Studio.