Common Intermediate Format
CIF (Common Intermediate Format) is used to standardize the horizontal and vertical resolutions in pixels of YCbCr sequences in video signals. QCIF means "Quarter CIF". SQCIF means "Sub-quarter CIF". These two formats are common in video encoding. To have one fourth of the area as "quarter" implies, height and width of the frame are halved. A CIF is commonly defined as one-quarter of the 'full' resolution of the video system it is intended for (listed below as 4CIF). Note that this full resolution does not match what is currently referred to as D1 video (based upon Sony's D1 format).
| Format | NTSC-based | PAL-based |
|---|---|---|
| SQCIF | 128 × 96 | |
| QCIF | 176 × 120 | 176 × 144 |
| QCIF+ | 176 × 220 | 176 × 220 |
| CIF | 352 × 240 | 352 × 288 |
| 4CIF | 704 × 480 | 704 × 576 |
| 9CIF | 1056 × 720 | 1056 × 864 |
| 16CIF | 1408 × 960 | 1408 × 1152 |
| D1 | 720 × 480 | 720 × 576 |
| SIF* | 352 × 240 | 352 × 288 |
| SIF | 360 × 240 | 360 × 288 |
- * = Rounded to the nearest multiple of 16.