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Image MIME Reference
DPX

Digital Picture Exchange

image/dpx
VS

Tagged Image File Format (Legacy MIME)

image/x-tiff
TIFF

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

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature DPX TIFF
Transparency (Alpha) Yes Yes
Animation Support ✕ No ✕ No
Progressive Loading ✕ No ✕ No
HDR Support Yes Yes
EXIF Metadata ✕ No Yes
ICC Color Profile ✕ No Yes
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 →
Tagged Image File Format (Legacy MIME)
image/x-tiff
Extension
.tiff.tif
Container IFD (Image File Directory) Tag Structure
Compression Uncompressed / LZW (Lossless) / ZIP / Deflate (Lossless) / PackBits (Lossless RLE) / JPEG (Lossy) / CCITT Group 3/4 (Fax/Document)
Algorithm
NoneLZWDeflatePackBitsJPEGCCITT
Color Depth 1-bit (Monochrome), 8-bit (Grayscale or Indexed), 16-bit (Per Channel), 32-bit (Float Per Channel)
Developed by Aldus Corporation (Later acquired by Adobe Systems)
Released 1986
Magic Bytes
49 49 2A 00 (Little-endian) or 4D 4D 00 2A (Big-endian)
Full TIFF reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser DPX TIFF
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
TIFF

TIFF Strengths

  • Universally accepted as the gold standard for high-fidelity archival and professional print workflows
  • Highly adaptable structure supports multiple pages (documents), layers, vast bit depths, and diverse compression algorithms within a single file
  • Unmatched support for rich metadata including EXIF, IPTC, XMP, and custom ICC color profiles
Limitations
  • Produces exceptionally large file sizes compared to modern web formats
  • The 'x-tiff' legacy MIME string forces developers to write extra validation logic to prevent strict security filters from rejecting valid uploads
  • The format's immense complexity means that many lightweight parsers only implement a subset of the specification, sometimes failing to read obscure compressions (like CCITT or old JPEG-in-TIFF)

When to choose which format

DPX
Use DPX when…
  • Film Scanning
  • Visual Effects (VFX)
  • Digital Intermediate (DI)
  • Color Grading
  • Archival
TIFF
Use TIFF when…
  • Professional Print and Desktop Publishing
  • High-Resolution Archival Scanning
  • Master Copies of Digital Photography

More comparisons

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