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Image MIME Reference
Compressed-XCF

Compressed GIMP XCF Image

image/x-compressed-xcf
VS

DVB Subtitle

image/vnd.dvb.subtitle
DVB-SUB

A complete technical comparison of Compressed GIMP XCF Image and DVB Subtitle — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature Compressed-XCF DVB-SUB
Transparency (Alpha) Yes Yes
Animation Support Yes ✕ No
Progressive Loading ✕ No ✕ No
HDR Support Yes ✕ No
EXIF Metadata Yes ✕ No
ICC Color Profile Yes ✕ No
Compressed GIMP XCF Image
image/x-compressed-xcf
Extension
.xcf.gz.xcf.bz2.xcfgz.xcfbz2
Container Gzip or Bzip2 Archive
Compression Gzip (Deflate) / Bzip2
Algorithm
DeflateBWT (Burrows-Wheeler)
Color Depth 8-bit (Per Channel), 16-bit (Integer/Floating Point), 32-bit (Integer/Floating Point)
Developed by The GIMP Team
Released 1995
Magic Bytes
1F 8B 08 (gzip) or 42 5A 68 (bzip2)
Full Compressed-XCF reference →
DVB Subtitle
image/vnd.dvb.subtitle
Extension
.sub.sup.ts
Container MPEG-2 Transport Stream (MPEG-TS) PES Packets
Compression Lossless (Run-Length Encoding)
Algorithm
RLE (Run-Length Encoding)
Color Depth 2-bit (Indexed), 4-bit (Indexed), 8-bit (Indexed CLUT)
Developed by DVB Project (ETSI)
Released 1997
Magic Bytes
20
Full DVB-SUB reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser Compressed-XCF DVB-SUB
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
Compressed-XCF

Compressed-XCF Strengths

  • Drastically reduces the massive file sizes of standard XCF project files, saving significant disk space
  • Preserves 100% of the non-destructive editing data (layers, masks, paths, guides) from the GIMP workspace
  • Uses standard, universally supported compression algorithms (gzip/bzip2) meaning the archive can be rescued or extracted by standard OS tools if GIMP is unavailable
Limitations
  • Increases file load and save times due to the CPU overhead required to compress and decompress the massive pixel arrays
  • Impossible for automated tools to parse metadata or dimensions without first unarchiving the payload into memory
  • File extension combinations (.xcf.gz) can confuse basic MIME sniffers which stop reading at the .gz extension
DVB-SUB

DVB-SUB Strengths

  • Guarantees 100% accurate visual representation (fonts, colors, layouts) exactly as intended by the broadcaster
  • Effortlessly supports complex character sets (e.g., Arabic, Asian languages) without relying on the client device possessing the necessary fonts
  • Supports region-specific dynamic positioning to avoid obscuring important on-screen graphics or burned-in lower thirds
Limitations
  • Requires significantly more bandwidth than text-based subtitles
  • Inaccessible to screen readers and cannot be indexed by search engines
  • Requires OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to translate back into standard text-based web formats
  • Zero native support in HTML5 video elements

When to choose which format

Compressed-XCF
Use Compressed-XCF when…
  • GIMP Multi-layer Project Archival
  • Saving disk space for complex raster edits
  • Open-source graphic design workflows
DVB-SUB
Use DVB-SUB when…
  • Digital Television Broadcasts (DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C)
  • IPTV and OTT Streaming
  • Hardware Set-top Boxes

More comparisons

Compressed-XCF vs ACES → DVB-SUB vs ACES → Compressed-XCF vs APNG → DVB-SUB vs APNG → Compressed-XCF vs AVCI → DVB-SUB vs AVCI → Compressed-XCF vs AVCS → DVB-SUB vs AVCS → Compressed-XCF vs AVIF → DVB-SUB vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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