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Image MIME Reference
DPX

Digital Picture Exchange

image/dpx
VS

Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias)

image/x-tga
TGA

A complete technical comparison of Digital Picture Exchange and Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias) — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature DPX TGA
Transparency (Alpha) Yes Yes
Animation Support ✕ No ✕ No
Progressive Loading ✕ No ✕ No
HDR Support Yes ✕ No
EXIF Metadata ✕ No ✕ No
ICC Color Profile ✕ No ✕ No
Digital Picture Exchange
image/dpx
Extension
.dpx
Container DPX (SMPTE ST 268)
Compression Uncompressed / RLE (Rarely used)
Algorithm
Uncompressed
Color Depth 8-bit, 10-bit, 12-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit (Float)
Developed by SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers)
Released 1994
Magic Bytes
53 44 50 58 (Big-endian) / 58 50 44 53 (Little-endian)
Full DPX reference →
Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias)
image/x-tga
Extension
.tga.icb.vda.vst
Container Truevision TGA Footer/Header
Compression Uncompressed / Run-Length Encoding (RLE)
Algorithm
NoneRLE
Color Depth 8-bit (Grayscale or Indexed), 16-bit (High Color), 24-bit (True Color), 32-bit (True Color with Alpha Channel)
Developed by Truevision Inc.
Released 1984
Magic Bytes
54 52 55 45 56 49 53 49 4F 4E 2D 58 46 49 4C 45 2E 00 (At the end of the file)
Full TGA reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser DPX TGA
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
DPX

DPX Strengths

  • Industry standard for transferring uncompressed, high-fidelity film and VFX data
  • Rich industry-specific metadata including timecode, keykode, and film stock information
  • Supports logarithmic color spaces (LogC, Cineon) to preserve the massive dynamic range of film negatives
Limitations
  • Massive file sizes (e.g., a single 4K 10-bit frame is ~50MB, resulting in ~1.2GB per second at 24fps)
  • Zero native support in web browsers or consumer OS image viewers
  • Requires heavy-duty, fast storage infrastructure (RAID/NVMe) to playback in real-time
TGA

TGA Strengths

  • Incredibly simple byte layout allows developers to write custom loaders and exporters in a few dozen lines of code, bypassing the need for heavy external libraries
  • Native support for 8-bit alpha channels ensures flawless transparency masking for real-time 3D rendering
  • Fast, predictable RLE decoding requires almost no CPU overhead compared to DEFLATE (PNG) or DCT (JPEG)
Limitations
  • RLE compression is relatively weak by modern standards, resulting in large file sizes
  • Lacks a standard magic byte header at the beginning of the file, making file-sniffing unreliable for older v1.0 files
  • Zero support in web browsers; must be converted to PNG or WebP for web delivery

When to choose which format

DPX
Use DPX when…
  • Film Scanning
  • Visual Effects (VFX)
  • Digital Intermediate (DI)
  • Color Grading
  • Archival
TGA
Use TGA when…
  • Video Game 3D Textures and Materials
  • 3D Rendering and Animation Sequences
  • Legacy Video Production Workflows

More comparisons

DPX vs ACES → TGA vs ACES → DPX vs APNG → TGA vs APNG → DPX vs AVCI → TGA vs AVCI → DPX vs AVCS → TGA vs AVCS → DPX vs AVIF → TGA vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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