What is CIF?
Oct 14, 2007

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The term CIF ("Common Intermediate Format") may be less common than visual formats like QVGA, but anyone who digs through a smartphone or PDA's specs definitely see it a lot, especially when reading about the secondary cameras of video-call-capable gadgets.
For all intents and purposes, CIF represents a resolution of 352 x 288, and you can derive similar format names from that definition:
SQCIF (Sub-Quarter CIF): 128 × 96
QCIF (Quarter CIF): 176 × 144
4CIF (4 x CIF): 704 × 576
16CIF (16 x CIF): 1408 × 1152
CIF was created to facilitate the conversion of videos from one format to another. Read the Wikipedia article for more details.