.DPX File Extension

Kodak originally developed the DPX format, also referred to as the "Digital Moving Picture Exchange Bitmap." However, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), a member of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), enhanced and published the DPX format. As a result, SMPTE now maintains the file format.

SMPTE released version 1 of the DPX format in 1994 and version 2 in 2003. In 2004, the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division began using the DPX format for scanning motion pictures for theatrical distribution.

More information about the DPX format

DPX is based on Kodak Cineon (.CIN), the original Kodak digital image format. The difference between DPX and CIN files is that DPX files contain additional information in the file header.

The DPX format consists of four sections with one optional section (user-defined data):

• Generic image data - Includes information about the file, image, and image orientation
• Industry specific information - Includes motion picture film and television information that describes the source the image data comes from (film and camera)
• User-defined data (optional) - Includes customized information typically populated by third-party applications to define technical specifications that deviate from the standard
• Image data - Includes bitmap pixel data stored as an array of 32-bit elements