In simple words, “Digital Cinema Package is the collection of digital files used to store & convey Digital Cinema Audio, Image & data streams” (Wikipedia).
So basically, it is kind of a package that has all the audio, video & image files of your movie. Usually DCP consists of MXF (Material Exchange Format) files. These files are used for streaming of the film on the Cinema or Projection server.
The MFX plays the role of file wrappers. All the files including image, video & audio files are contained in these wrappers in a compressed format. This instantly reduces the file size and makes it easy to transport it efficiently. The video files or the container files are more like that of MOV & AVI. These files can also be protected against unauthorized access with encryption. The audio files are in 24-bit Linear PCM channel and images in JPEG2000 (J2K) format.
Additionally, DCP also has supporting files other than these audio & video files. These files run parallelly with these MXF files & provide inputs on how these files will run from start till end. DCP format has six types of files:
Video /Image MXF File
Audio MXF File
Asset MAP File
Composition Playlist File (CPL)
Packing List File (PKL)
Volume Index File
All these files are important & play a crucial role in seamless streaming of the film in cinema.
We mentioned about J2K format earlier. Let’s talk about it.
