CIF stands for Common Intermediate Format, and is used to standardize the horizontal and vertical resolutions in pixels of a video signal. A CIF is commonly defined as being one-quarter of the full resolution of the video stream for which it is Intended. For example: QCIF (quarter CIF) is to have one fourth the height and width of the frame or, in other words, one half the size.

NB: Full resolution below does not match what is currently referred to as D1 video of Sony's D1 format.