Most Digital Cinema Packages are now being distributed in the SMPTE-DCP format. Prior packages adhered to the Interop-DCP format. The design of these Interop packages adheres to a de facto standard that was common practice. The industry has moved to the formal SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) standards. This mainly impacts servers, not projectors; however, rendering of subtitles in the projectors may be affected. In order to identify the construction of the package, the standard is explicitly denoted IOP for an Interop-DCP package and SMPTE for a SMPTE-DCP package. Additionally, if the package is a 3D package the extension of -3D is added to the field. This is done so that a quick check of the end of the file name indicates the standard and whether or not the package is in 3D.

The standard of the CPL can be determined by the XML NameSpace (xmlns) used topmost level of the /CompositionPlaylist

SMPTE-DCP CPLs use the following SMPTE XML NameSpace

<CompositionPlaylist xmlns=”http://www.smpte-ra.org/schemas/429-7/2006/CPL”>
  …
</CompositionPlaylist>

Interop-DCP CPLs use the following DigiCine XML NameSpace

<CompositionPlaylist xmlns=”http://www.digicine.com/PROTO-ASDCP-CPL-20040511#”>
  …
</CompositionPlaylist>