Reference Formats
Cineon
Cineon is Kodak's original 10-bit logarithmic file format for scanned motion-picture film frames, created for its early-1990s digital film system and later superseded by the SMPTE DPX standard it directly inspired.
Extension
.cin
Full name
Kodak Cineon Digital Film Format
Introduced
Early 1990s — the Cineon system was first released in September 1992 to Cinesite Hollywood; the .cin file format shipped as part of that system and predates the 1994 SMPTE DPX standard it fed into
Vendor
Eastman Kodak Company
What is inside the container
A Cineon (.cin) file stores a single scanned film frame with each RGB channel quantized to 10 bits, three channels packed per 32-bit word, encoded in a logarithmic scale that corresponds directly to the density of the original negative rather than to screen brightness. Conventional black and white reference points sit at code values 95 and 685 on the 0–1023 scale, leaving headroom above and below for film's extended exposure range. Like DPX, a Cineon file is one frame of a sequence, not a clip, and was produced by Kodak's own CCD film scanner and consumed by its laser film recorder as part of a closed scan-grade-record workflow.
How to open it
For archives
Treat any Cineon material in a collection as a legacy asset from a discontinued system — Kodak withdrew Cineon from sale by 1997 — and migrate the frame sequences to DPX or a modern format like OpenEXR on ingest while preserving the original .cin files unmodified as the archival record. Keep the full frame sequence and its numbering intact, since Cineon carries no motion-container wrapper of its own. Document the black/white code-value reference points (traditionally 95/685) alongside the files, since that mapping is needed to correctly interpret the log data on any future re-scan or restoration pass.
Cineon was the product of a Kodak research effort that began around 1989 and led to one of the first fully computer-based digital film systems: a CCD film scanner, a laser film recorder, and SGI-based workstation software for compositing, restoration, and color management, first delivered to Cinesite Hollywood in September 1992. Glenn Kennel led the scanner and recorder hardware development in Rochester, New York, while the workstation software was built by a team based in Melbourne, Australia before development moved back to the US. Kodak withdrew Cineon from commercial sale by 1997, but the .cin file format it introduced outlived the hardware by decades.
- One frame per file — a shot is a numbered sequence, never a single clip container
- 10-bit logarithmic RGB, three channels packed per 32-bit word
- Reference black/white code values of 95 and 685 on a 0–1023 scale, leaving headroom for film’s exposure range
- Produced by Kodak’s own CCD film scanner and consumed by its laser film recorder as a closed scan-grade-record workflow
The reason it outlived the product is that Cineon solved a real problem film labs still have: how to represent a scanned negative’s full exposure range in a fixed number of bits without clipping highlights or crushing shadows. Its answer — 10-bit values in a logarithmic scale tied to negative density — became the template that SMPTE formalized two years later as DPX, adding a standardized header but keeping the same core pixel encoding. In practice, most facilities today store new material as DPX, and Cineon shows up in a DAM as inherited archival footage from productions or restoration scans done before DPX became the default.
For asset management, Cineon behaves like DPX’s older sibling: single-frame files in numbered sequences, no built-in thumbnail or preview data, and pixel values that render flat and low-contrast without the correct log-to-linear transform applied. A DAM handling a Cineon-based collection needs the same sequence-aware grouping and decoder support as it does for DPX — generic image tools simply do not open the format — and should flag Cineon material distinctly from DPX so restoration teams know which encoding conventions and code-value references apply.
Frequently asked
Is Cineon the same thing as DPX?
No, though they're closely related. Cineon is Kodak's original proprietary 10-bit log format from its early-1990s film system; DPX is the SMPTE standard published in 1994 that extended Cineon's pixel encoding with a formal, more extensible header. DPX effectively replaced Cineon in modern production.
Why would a DAM still have Cineon files today?
Cineon material typically survives as archival footage — scans from productions or restoration work done on the original Kodak Cineon system before it was withdrawn from sale in 1997, or from facilities that continued using compatible tools afterward. A media-focused DAM handling restoration or catalog libraries can still encounter it.
What do the reference values 95 and 685 mean in a Cineon file?
They're the conventional 10-bit code values Kodak assigned to represent film black and white points respectively, out of a 0–1023 range. Software reading Cineon log data needs these reference points to map the stored density values back to a viewable image correctly.
Can a generic image viewer open a .cin file?
No. Cineon requires a decoder that understands its specific 10-bit logarithmic packing and reference-value scheme; without one, most viewers either refuse to open the file or render it as a flat, incorrect image.
Does a Cineon file store a whole shot or just one frame?
Just one frame, the same convention DPX later adopted. A shot is represented as a sequence of individually numbered .cin files, so a DAM must group them by shared filename and frame count to treat the shot as a single asset.
Should Cineon files be converted to DPX for long-term storage?
Many archives do migrate Cineon sequences to DPX or OpenEXR on ingest for wider tool compatibility, but the original .cin files should be retained unmodified as the archival record, since migration is a derivative step, not a replacement for preservation of the source.
Why is Cineon's bit depth fixed at 10 bits per channel?
Ten bits per channel, packed three channels to a 32-bit word, was Kodak's chosen balance between preserving enough of a film negative's density range for grading and keeping file sizes and scanner/recorder hardware manageable for early-1990s systems.
Who developed the Cineon system, and when did Kodak stop selling it?
Kodak began development around 1989, released the system commercially in September 1992, and withdrew it from sale by 1997, though some facilities continued using it afterward. The .cin file format outlasted the hardware and became the technical basis for SMPTE's DPX standard.
Sources
- The Cineon system was one of the first computer-based digital film systems, developed by Kodak beginning in the late 1980s and first released in September 1992 to Cinesite Hollywood. checked 2026-08-07 — Wikipedia — Cineon
- Cineon software was withdrawn from sale by Kodak by 1997, though some customers continued using it beyond that date. checked 2026-08-07 — Wikipedia — Cineon
- In the Cineon .cin format, each RGB channel is 10 bits packed three per 32-bit word, stored in log format corresponding to the density of the original negative, with conventional black/white points at code values 95 and 685. checked 2026-08-07 — HandWiki — Cineon
- The Cineon file format formed the basis for the later SMPTE-standardized DPX format. checked 2026-08-07 — HandWiki — Cineon