What if you make an AVIF image sequence, with the zoomed photo followed by the wide angle photo? Presumably AV1 is smart enough to compress the second based on the first.
> I could build up a lot of solar panels and use the electricity to heat up an oven more than the surface of the sun, right?
Yes, this would be like using a hydroelectric dam to power a fountain that sprays higher than the initial reservoir. Machines can convert a large amount of low-quality energy into a small amount of high-quality energy, even when passive components (e.g. mirrors or pipes) cannot.
So in order to receive this beam efficiently, you would need a solar array 5 km in diameter with 100% ground coverage. Efficiency decreases if the array is smaller or less dense. Maybe you could use a curved mirror to focus the beam to a smaller diameter, but that seems more difficult than spinning a flat mylar sheet.
Assuming you had such an array, every 1 m^2 of mirror should provide roughly as much power as 1 m^2 of panels on the ground.
