26 File Formats, 5 Notarized Documents, and Proof You Didn't Steal Someone's Face

What you actually need to deliver to distributors, what distributors will pretend to need, and what you'll actually use.

Film Distribution Deliverables: A Thrilling World Of Joy

So you’ve made your film and then you meet a distributor and discover you need to deliver approximately 26 different file formats, legal documents from 1992, and proof you didn’t accidentally steal someone’s face.

I’m going to go through a distributor delivery request for an old project I worked on. Here’s what you’ll get asked for and why.

I’ve updated some of this myself, but

Ami Vora

and

Kinema for Filmmakers

may have some other interesting things to add - or contrasting opinions on what they need - since these things subtly change all the time. Similarly other producers like

Sean King O’Grady

might have had different experiences and other war stories.

If you’d like clarity or further information on anything - ask me questions in the comments.

Or — if you have the stomach to do distribute yourself, then this is a basic list of what you’ll probably need. This is your checklist. You will need these exact same deliverables - you’ll just be uploading relevant bits to different people instead of uploading all of them to your distributor.

Mostly this is like selling a house. You have a valuable thing. The distributor is buying it. These deliverables are the survey, the deed, the keys, and proof the wiring won’t burn the place down.

A preview of the main sections:

• The Master Files

  • What they really need, what they’ll ask for, what they actually use.

• Audio Configuration

  • It’s not complicated, it’s just specific. Mainly, do a professional job and separate your stems properly.

• Technical Specs and QC

  • Timecode slates, levels, bars and tone all exist for a reason. The reason being you don’t want to be the editor on the other end of trying to figure out how to fix a bad delivery. Be professional, be courteous to the people downstream of your exports. Distributors will hire a post house to QC your files and make sure it’s all good. They’ll tell you your blacks are too crushed and your Goddardian jump cuts are an error. Smile, nod, explain what’s intentional, fix what isn’t.

• Publicity Materials

  • They’ll ask for 100 stills. They’ll probably accept what they get. But actor releases are non-negotiable unless you enjoy paying blackmail from agents.

• Legal Documents

  • Chain of title is basically prove you own what you’re selling. E&O insurance exists so they don’t get sued when you lied about clearing that Radiohead track.

• Jargon Explanation

  • Don’t know your SMPTE from your BLITS. Look here...

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VIDEO MASTERS

Feature Film Requirements
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Essential Formats:

- ProRes 422 HQ: Original framerate, original aspect ratio, with all textless elements at tail

- H264 MP4: 8Mb/sec

- DCP: DCI compliant, encrypted, 24fps, original aspect ratio (1.85:1 or 2.35:1), 2D and 3D formats with DKDM


If available:

- 4K/2K ProRes 4:4:4:4 OR TIFF/DPX sequence: Original framerate, original aspect ratio, with textless elements

- ProRes 4:4:4:4 UHDTV Master: 3840 x 2160, original framerate, original aspect ratio, with textless elements


Additional Requirements:

- English Closed Caption files

- English Subtitle files

What This Actually Means

All the super large ProRes variants are qualified as “if available” because they may not even want them. Really they want a file they can generate downstream stuff from that’s passes QC. They don’t really want is the highest quality possible beacause those files are huge and really only useful if you have to go back and fix something. However, there’s always an element of Chinese whispers that can be frustrating.

ProRes 422 HQ is your baseline these days. That’s your practical master file. You can make anything from it - DCPs, H264s, everything downstream. It’s “visually“ lossless. That means it’s lossless but Apple says you won’t see it. Still, it’s a good quality mastering file, and if all you’re doing is generating files for distribution it’s going to be fine for most projects.

ProRes 4:4:4:4 in 4K is your gold standard - that’s your serious master, at camera negative quality (if you shot at that quality!). If you’re doing it for your own project, you want this because it means you can go back and actually dig into it and change things. But it’s a massive file and a pain to use, so it’s not practical except for remastering or going back to absolute best quality to do something with (maybe you want to regrade, add vfx and AI upres for IMAX or something).

DCP (Digital Cinema Package) - you can create this from your ProRes file. An unencrypted DCP is relatively easy - you can spit one out of DCP-O-Matic for free. If you want to do it in Resolve with Easy DCP, it’s expensive but makes your life even easier. The encrypted DKDM version will probably cost you about £1,000 or £1500 at a posthouse (depending on your posthouse). Distributors will almost certainly insist on the encrypted version unless you can convince them to take non-encrypted, but then they might need to re-encrypt from your 422 file with they’d have to pay for. So... you probably just want to do it yourself. It’s not that hard, just fiddly - and renders take a while.

The H264 at 8Mb/sec - you can’t watch a ProRes 4:4:4:4 file on most laptops (or many places really). The H264 is your viewable file - anyone can watch it, check it, show it to their friends.

Textless elements at tail - you need textless backgrounds for every graphic. Mainly that’s for international distribution. You’re subtitling, and redoing it in whatever language. So textless elements mean textless versions of any shots with text in the cut, with that text removed. You put them 30 seconds after the final frame of your main picture.

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Trailer Requirements

Essential Formats:

- ProRes 422 HQ: Original framerate, original aspect ratio, with all textless elements at tail

- H264 MP4: 8Mb/sec

- DCP: DCI compliant, encrypted, 24fps, original aspect ratio (1.85:1 or 2.35:1), 2D and 3D formats with DKDM


Optional (If Available):

- 4K/2K ProRes 4:4:4:4 OR TIFF/DPX sequence: Original framerate, original aspect ratio, with textless elements

- ProRes 4:4:4:4 UHDTV Master: 3840 x 2160, original framerate, original aspect ratio, with textless elements


Additional Requirements:

- English Closed Caption files

- English Subtitle files

What This Means

Yes, they want the full suite for the trailer. They don’t want to have to create any of this material themselves. In practice all they actually need is the 422 HQ, the splits and the H264. But they’re asking for everything so they have it if needed. If you don’t have it, they’ll probably say “oh, sure, okay” - but then if it becomes an issue it becomes a cost against the film if they have to make it themselves.

Bonus Features & EPK

Format: ProRes 422 HQ, original framerate

This is more “ideal” than “required” in most situations. They’re saying “are there extra bits we can have because that might be useful?” It’s better to get more stuff rather than less - you can choose not to use it. If you’re selling your film, hopefully you’ve done all this and you’ve got those bits, because it’s useful for marketing.

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AUDIO MASTERS

Required Formats (Feature & Trailer)

All formats must be WAV, 24-bit, conformed to original framerate:

- 5.1 and Stereo Full Mix

- 5.1 and Stereo Music & Effects (M&E)

- 5.1 and Stereo Dialogue, Music & Effects stems

- Complete Soundtrack (if available)


16-Track Layout (for ProRes masters):

- Tracks 1-2: 2.0 Full Mix Lt, Rt

- Tracks 3-4: 2.0 M&E Lt, Rt

- Tracks 5-10: 5.1 Full Mix (SMPTE Order: L, R, C, LFE, SL, SR)

- Tracks 11-16: 5.1 M&E (SMPTE Order: L, R, C, LFE, SL, SR)


Audio quality and loudness: All audio must conform to EBU R128 (integrated measurement). This will be checked in QC. Peak level recommendations:

- Uncompressed Music: -3dB TP

- Compressed Music: -10dB TP

- Heavy M&E (gunshots, warfare, aircraft): -3dB TP

- Background M&E (office noise, light music): -18dB TP


Sound Quality

- Sound must be recorded with appropriately placed microphones, giving minimum background noise and distortion.

- The audio must be free of spurious signals such as clicks, noise, hum and any analogue distortion.

- The audio must be reasonably continuous and smoothly mixed and edited.

- Audio levels must be appropriate to the scene portrayed and dynamic range must not be excessive. They must be suitable for the whole range of domestic listening situations.

- Stereo audio must be appropriately balanced and free from phase differences which cause audible cancellation in mono.

- Surround audio must be appropriately balanced and free from phase differences and inter-sample latencies which cause audible cancellation in the stereo and mono down mixes.

- The audio must not show dynamic and/or frequency response artifacts as a result of the action of noise reduction or low bit rate coding systems.

Please ensure all programs are compliant with the most recent version of the EBU recommendation on Loudness EBU R128 (integrated measurement). This applies to full mix audio; it is not necessary for M&E.

What This Means

Every distributor might have something slightly different in all of these things, but it’s not actually complicated - it’s just a track layout and do your job properly. If you know about audio track layout, it’s really simple.

Also - if I remember correctly, this spec might actually be wrong. I think we were given a deliverables sheet that was inaccurate - and we needed to check if they wanted the inaccurate thing they specified, or the accurate way of doing it.

Always good to double check your document’s requested tech specs with the actual independent industry standards!

M&E - Your M&E has to have all your music and effects split out so you can reconstruct it later. It has to be cleanly separated. All the stuff in the master track has to all be in your splits. This is all pretty standard professional delivery DME stuff though. Nothing special.

Audio quality and loudness specs - means ask your sound person to make sure it sounds good, then press the right buttons on export. You want to check with the international film screening standards though - this stuff can change.

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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Frame Standards

- Aspect Ratio: Original unless explicitly agreed otherwise

- Frame Rate: Original unless explicitly agreed otherwise

- Source Recording: Minimum full HD, lossless compression or uncompressed


ProRes 422 HQ (HD):

- Frame size: 1920 x 1080 (REC709)

- Original frame rate

- 16-track audio configuration as specified above


ProRes 4:4:4:4 (4K/2K):

- Frame size: 4096 x 2160 (4K) / 2048 x 1080 (2K), REC709

- Original frame rate

- Same audio configuration


ProRes 4:4:4:4 (UHDTV):

- Frame size: 3840 x 2160 (REC709)

- Original frame rate

- Same audio configuration


For 25fps delivery:

- Bars & Tone: 09:59:30:00 to 09:59:49:24

- Slate/Clock: 09:59:50:00 to 09:59:56:24

- Black: 09:59:57:00 to 09:59:59:24

- Programme Start: 10:00:00:00


For other framerates: Adjust accordingly, programme starts at 01:00:00:00

30 seconds of black after the final frame of the main picture before textless elements: the main,end and any insert titles. For DCP separate textless material should be included in the feature package.

Titles and Captions should be safe for 16:9

Each file must include Bars&Tone (Line-up) before the start of the first asset.

Slate Information Must Include:

- Title

- Subtitle/episode

- Format (resolution, progressive/interlaced/etc, framerate) eg. 1080p25

- Aspect ratio

- Audio track configuration

- Total run time


Tone specifications:

- For 25fps stereo: 1kHz @ -18dBFS

- For 23.98fps stereo: 1kHz @ -20dBFS

- For 5.1 mixes: BLITS tones

Md5 Checksum: Provide each file with Md5 Checksum if supplying on HDD.

Any re-supplied files should add the suffix _v2/_v3.

Audio must be configured as R123:16c Option 1.

Files should be in REC 709 Colour Space unless otherwise agreed

What This Means

Those timings are pretty standard. That’s exactly what I expect from any deliverable as a matter of course.

Any deliverable should always have bars and tone, a countdown with a slate, and start on the hour. So your timecode should have 5 or 10 seconds of black at the front with your countdown explaining what it is, then the programme starts on the hour (10:00:00:00 for features).

(I do pretty much this on every timeline I ever make. That’s just how my timelines are set up. They start at 09:59:50:00 with a slate and program starts on 10:00:00:00.)

Why 10:00:00:00 for features? This gives you immediate visual confirmation that it’s a long-form piece, and you can read exactly how long the feature is from the timecode. Rule of thumb -- if it’s under 30 minutes or so, I start at 01:00:00:00. If it’s over that - approaching an hour or more - start at 10:00:00:00.

The 30 seconds of black before textless elements - this is just standard buffering. I’m not entirely sure why it’s so long. But back in the days of tape, you had to make sure the start of the tape wasn’t messed up. It’s still the convention, I assume its a holdover.

All this may seem a lot of setup for anyone that’s not worked in an environment where you pass off elements to editors in different companies. But this is professional standard and even when it’s not required it’s professional curtesy. If everything is slated, with good information and starts on the hour, it’s much easier to hand projects between people/companies.

The final thing to remember is that you’ll probably have to upload this things multiple times to fix errors or missing bits. Never call anything “final”. Never use the word “final” in any file name. Ever. Please just make everyone’s lives much better and timestamp files and version them YYYY-MM-DD_V001_Name. Please.

Learn it once, use it always.

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CLOSED CAPTIONS + SUBTITLES

Closed Captions (English):

- For deaf/hard-of-hearing audiences

- Includes dialogue + sound effects + speaker identification

- “[DOOR SLAMS]”, “[ominous music playing]”, “JOHN: Hey there”

- Legal accessibility requirement


Subtitles (typically non-English):

- For foreign language translation

- Dialogue only

- Assumes hearing audience


Both are typically SRT files (same technical format, different content). When distributors ask for both, they want:

1. English CC for domestic accessibility compliance

2. English subtitles as translation base for international markets

What This Means

Get subtitles made. I’ve never done this myself because it was always such a tedious pain. However, DaVinci Resolve now does transcription and auto-subtitling, which has made this easier - but that’s just the past few months.

If I was doing closed captions myself, first, I’d be thoroughly bored. Second, I don’t know what the legal requirements are for what needs to be called out and how. It’s probably not hard to figure out, but do I want to create them? No. Send it to a post house, it’s probably £500 well spent, add it to the tab along with outsourcing other not hard but tediously detailed bits of post like the DKDM DCP and QC.

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QC PROCESS

Your files will go through Quality Control - first yours, then the distributor’s post house, then the platform’s QC.

The QC process will throw up things, and you’ll want to tell them to piss off. “Your colours are wrong” when it’s obviously an artistic choice. They’ll flag intentional jump cuts as errors. They’ll complain about a sudden jump in noise levels when you deliberately added grain in that flashback.

However... they’re doing their job. The computer has noted that there is a discontinuity where there should be continuity. Or they’ve gone frame by frame and marked it on a spreadsheet. You just need to explain “this is intentional” or “this is not intentional.” If it’s not intentional, you have to try and fix it. If they don’t like it... then you might need to be super persuasive or go back and take that artistic grain off.

Distributors are generally pretty reasonable about this. They saw the movie and they have decided to buy it. If you say “this is intentional” or “there’s nothing we can do about it,” and they’ve already accepted the film, and it’s something small, they’ll probably just say “Meh, it’s fine.”

The basic thing is that it’s about getting everyone on the same page with lots of detail. Once you hand it over they own it. The distributor owns that file. It’s like buying a house. You are either going to accept it with watermarks on the hall ceiling and the dodgy kitchen door or you ask the current owner to fix it before handing it over. But if you really want the house, maybe you just buy it with the dirty ceiling because it has charm and move on. They’re kicking the tyres, making sure they know what they’re buying.

Audio QC is straightforward - if you’ve got a good sound person, it’s not a problem. EBU R128 compliance will be checked. It’s like saying is the tyre pressure within standards.

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PUBLICITY MATERIALS

Requirements

Minimum 100 high-resolution stills (300dpi minimum)

- Full and medium framing of all main characters

- Representative variety of scenes and main action

- Fully cleared for use


High-resolution layered key art (EPS or PSD format with fonts)

- Contractual logos in high resolution

- Press kit and reviews (as available)

- Additional promotional materials in EPS/PSD (as available)

What This Actually Means

In practice, 100 high-res stills are probably ambitious. They’ll accept less if they really want the film. They’re not going to reject your film because you have 99 stills instead of 100.

But you should take a lot of production stills. Even if it’s the same person sitting in a chair from four different angles, you can give “exclusive” photos to different outlets. Have someone on set shooting, or for film stills - go through the film and grab frames. I actually prefer stills from the film rather than photos pretending to be images from the film which is how they are often done. If it’s in the world of the film, take stills from the film. The setup is for that camera, not the random BTS guy’s spot on set. And if you can’t afford the still photographer shoot behind-the-scenes crew photos on your iPhone.

”Fully cleared for use” - this means actor releases. You need to make sure actors have signed off on publicity stills, but this should be in their contract. Similarly, anyone appearing in photos, or brands/products needs clearance because it might suggest endorsement, and they might not like that.

Get sign offs BEFORE you are at delivering stage. Once you’re on the hook to deliver something, that’s when someone’s got leverage. The actor will say “well, you just sold your movie, and it’s my clearance holding this up - I think you need to cough up some more money.”

I’ve seen this happen. At a very famous company, the contract was all last minute and the director was supposed to get the very famous actor to sign on the day of the shoot. He forgot. This actor was known for being prickly. He knew he had leverage (or at least his agent did). His agent called and said “you now need to pay a lot more money than originally agreed.” So the company did. Don’t be that person.

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LEGAL & BUSINESS DOCUMENTS

Essential Documents


Chain of Title (5 original notarized hard copies):

- Copyright Research Report and Trademark Search Report

- Title Research Report and Legal Opinion

- All relevant copyright and other rights agreements

- US Copyright certificate or registration copy

- Cast and crew contracts

- All employment agreements (writers, producers, directors, principal cast, senior crew), along with waivers, permissions or other documents relating to the production of the film

- Assignment letters


Insurance & Liability:

- E&O Policy (Errors & Omissions) naming distributor as additional insured

- Certificate of Origin/Nationality (5 original hard copies)


Production Documentation:

- Music cue sheets (English, all titles/timings/copyright owners/publishers, performance rights societies and type of usage)

- All music licenses (master use and synchronization) for material in the film in perpetuity without further compensation, and for use in advertising, marketing and promotion

- Footage licenses

- Other documents rela[ng to the production of the Film, including but not limited to, clip licenses, script clearances and permissions, including photographic or portrayal releases, rental contracts, location agreements and other contracts for production personnel.

- Paid advertising statement (exact placement, wording, size of credits)

- Screen credit obligations

- Dubbing and subtitling restrictions

- Laboratory access letter

- Budget letter (confirming total production budget)

- Technical data sheet


Text & Dialogue:

- Combined English dialogue and spotting list (feature and trailer)

- Combined English dialogue and spotting list (all bonus features)

- Final main and end titles

- Credit block

- Main cast and crew bios

- Short and long synopses

What This Actually Means

The legal documents will be checked as due diligence. They need to know they’re not going to get sued by someone. They need to know that you own what you’re selling, that you have the right to sell it, that you’ve cleared all the music, paid the writer, got the copyright.

Are they going to phone everybody and check? No. But you need to have all this stuff because otherwise you’re selling something you don’t own. Things like facial likenesses and talent releases. If you were guerrilla filming - how careful were you about notifying the public you were filming or getting permits? If some member of the public is visible in a shot for some time, did you get a release from them? Any and all documentation is useful in case of something going wrong down the line.

Again, it’s like buying a house - legal only comes into play if someone gets angry. This is about making sure what you’re selling and what they’re buying are the same thing. You’re handing off a property - you need to prove all the bits were actually yours.

Many of these documents are effectively “don’t be a moron.”

If you don’t have cast and crew sign-off on contracts and rights. What are you even doing filming anything? Go home before you hurt someone.

Certificate of Origin - this is generally for tax purposes, establishing the film qualifies for whatever. Five physical copies in case they lose one.

E&O Insurance - Errors & Omissions coverage against claims of copyright infringement, defamation, invasion of privacy. The distributor needs to be named as additional insured. Everybody’s insured so that when you’re buying and selling something, if something goes wrong, the money is there to fix it. This could be £5-25k depending on what you need and how much (a distributor might want £1m in coverage to proceed for instance). If you’re self distributing… you can insure yourself against nuisance claims of use of likeness for example at any level.

Music cue sheets - Again, it’s all about there’s a chain of responsibility, and ownership. The composer’s company (or composer) signs off “we own the rights to this” - if an individual musician tries to sue later, the chain goes to the music company and insurance handles it.

Budget letter - they want to know what you paid for it. What they use it for? Possibly tax purposes. Partly due diligence. Did you cheat anyone?

Certificate of Origin/Nationality - Establishes which country the film is ‘from’ for co-production treaty purposes, tax incentives, and festival eligibility etc. Usually determined by where the producer is based, principal photography was, nationality of key creative personnel, and financing sources. It determines which government subsidies you qualify for and which international sales territories have easier access. Tariffs!

Laboratory access letter - Gives the distributor legal permission to access your original camera negatives, audio masters, and project files held at post houses or storage facilities. Not because they don’t trust your delivery - because when they discover you accidentally delivered the temp music mix instead of the final, or they need that deleted scene for a special edition, they can go get it without negotiating with you every time. CYA protection. But if you’re David Fincher you “had a small flood and the hard drives were sadly destroyed” (NOT LEGAL ADVICE).

Make sure your paperwork is in order. It’s not that complicated. It is that tedious.

The 7-day turnaround clause - “If additional documents are required, provide within 7 working days or we’ll create them and recoup costs from revenue.” This just means “do your job, we’re trying to get a deal done and move on with our lives.” Usually they’re flexible about the grace period unless there is another deadline they are trying to meet.

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DISTRIBUTOR PRESENTATION CREDIT

Distributors will require front-end presentation credit (“A [Distributor Name] Presents”) or something similar with specific requirements:

- Font size and prominence no less than any other entity

- Specific screen time

What This Means

Everyone genuinely cares about credits. And wants their name the biggest.

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WHAT ALL OF THIS MEANS

Whether you’re working with a distributor or self-distributing, you need these deliverables.

The distributor isn’t doing anything magic - they’re uploading files to platforms, managing legal paperwork, and maybe running a marketing campaign. Some other bits.

It’s still a lot of work that requires upfront capital. If you’re self-distributing, you’re cutting out the middleman but what you’ll need is identical.

You need the same master files, the same legal documents, the same QC process. You’re just uploading to FilmHub and Vimeo or @Kinema yourself instead of uploading to the distributor’s office, hoping they might pay you a few bucks in 4 years time.

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GLOSSARY AND JARGON...

• Lt, Rt

  • Left total/Right total. Matrix-encoded stereo that folds 5.1 down to two channels without completely destroying the mix. Aircraft headphones, TV speakers, that sort of thing.

• SMPTE order

  • The industry standard channel layout: Left, Right, Center, LFE (subwoofer), Surround Left, Surround Right. Every post house uses this. If you deliver in a different order, someone will quietly hate you.

• EBU R128

  • European broadcast loudness standard. Integrated loudness of -23 LUFS with a true peak limit of -1dBFS. Your sound person’s software will measure this automatically. It exists so TV viewers don’t get blasted when your film comes on after a period drama.

• dBFS

  • Decibels Full Scale. Digital audio measurement where 0dBFS is the absolute ceiling. Go over and you get clipping (bad). Hence the negative numbers.

• dB TP

  • Decibels True Peak. Accounts for inter-sample peaks that can occur during digital-to-analog conversion. More accurate than sample peak measurement for preventing distortion on consumer playback.

• BLITS

  • A series of test tones for 5.1 systems. Cycles through each channel individually (Left, Right, Center, LFE, Surround Left, Surround Right) so the person on the other end can verify everything’s routed correctly and at proper levels.

• ProRes 4:4:4:4

  • 12-bit 4:4:4:4 color sampling at approximately 500-700 Mbps (at 1080p24). Full color resolution, alpha channel support. The last “4” is the alpha channel. Useful for VFX work, major color correction, or if you’re masochistically future-proofing (I would masochistically future-proof). File sizes are brutal. Roughly 250Gb for a 1080p and 1Tb for a 4k movie. 422 by comparison is about 160 for 1080p and 660 for 4k.

• ProRes 422 HQ

  • 10-bit 4:2:2 color sampling at approximately 220 Mbps (at 1080p24). Visually indistinguishable from uncompressed for most purposes. Called “4:2:2” because it samples color information at half the resolution of luminance - which your eye doesn’t notice because humans are better at seeing brightness differences than color differences.

• REC709

  • The HD color space standard. Defines the range of colors your video can display. BT.709 if you want to sound technical in meetings. There are other color spaces (DCI-P3 for cinema, BT.2020 for UHD), but REC709 is what HD broadcast and streaming platforms expect.

• DCP

  • Digital Cinema Package. The format cinemas actually project. It’s basically a folder structure containing JPEG2000 image sequences, uncompressed audio, and XML files describing how to play it all back. Unencrypted means any cinema can play it. Encrypted means you generate KDMs (Key Delivery Messages) for specific projectors at specific venues for specific date ranges.

• DKDM

  • Distribution Key Delivery Message. For your encrypted DCP. This is the master key that lets you generate venue-specific keys (KDMs). This allows you to generate DCPs to play and they can’t do anything with it until you give them permission. If someone gets your DKDM they can make unlimited KDMs for unlimited venues. It’s your distribution control. There’s not actually a difference technically between a KDM and a DKDM except in permissions. The DKDM is meant to sit as an almost unlimited key where as KDM’s are generally limited as you decide by time and location.

• DCI-compliant

  • Digital Cinema Initiatives standards. The technical specifications that ensure your DCP will play on cinema projectors worldwide. Frame rates (24fps or 48fps), resolution (2K or 4K), color space (X’Y’Z’), encryption methods, all standardized so a DCP made in London plays in Tokyo.

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