Diagram

The festival DCP workflow

A visual roadmap to DCP mastering

Borja Ribes Blanquer
By Borja Ribes Blanquer DCP CONSULTANT Last Update: March 16, 2026
SOURCE FILES
Picture
Sound
Gamma
(Conversion to 2.6)
Color Space
(Conversion to XYZ)
Channel assigment
Loudness Normalization
DCP MASTERING
Subtitles / captions
Hash-verified ZIP
Secure Transfer
(Aspera/Filemail)
Venue
(Ingest server)
Resolution
(2K/4K)
Aspect ratio
(Flat/Scope)
Levels
(Full/Data)
Framerate
Audio mix 
Multichannel
(5.1 / 7.1)
Stereo 
(2.0)
Upmix to L-C-R
(3.0)
INTEROP
(24 fps only)
SMPTE
(24/25/30/50/60 fps)
DCP OV
(Original Version)
OR
DCP VF
(Version File)
Automated QC
(Hash Check / Intergrity)
Human QC 
(Color/Sync/Audio/
Artifacts)
YES
NO
Versioning?
NO
YES
Encryption?
Unencrypted
Encrypted
QC
(Validation)
Final package
Validated
KDM
Video Encoding
(JPEG2000) 
Audio Encoding
(PCM) 
Timed Text Encoding
(XML) 
OR
Encoding
Video Wrapping
MXF
Audio Wrapping
MXF
Timed Text Wrapping
XML /MXF
CPL
MXFs
...
CPL
MXFs
...
Naming convention
DCNC
Accesibility Audio  
(Optional HI / VI)
Mono 
(1.0)
Channel assigment
Font
Color
Size
Length
Position
DELIVERY
DCP Standard