The international standard ITU-R BT.601-1 specifies eight-bit digital coding for component video, with black at luma code 16 and white at luma code 235, and chroma in 8-bit two’s complement form centered on 128 with a peak at code 224. This coding has a slightly smaller excursion for luma than for chroma: luma has 219 risers compared to 224 for Cb and Cr. The notation CbCr distinguishes this set from PbPr where the luma and chroma excursions are identical. For Rec. 601-1, coding is eight bits per component.

Some computer applications place black at luma code 0 and white at luma code 255. In this case, the scaling and offsets above can be changed accordingly, although broadcast-quality video requires the accommodation for headroom and footroom provided in the CCIR-601-1 equations. ITU-R BT.601-1 Rec. calls for two-to-one horizontal subsampling of Cb and Cr, to achieve 2/3 the data rate of RGB with virtually no perceptible penalty. This is denoted 4:2:2. A few digital video systems have used horizontal subsampling by a factor of four, denoted 4:1:1. JPEG and MPEG normally subsample Cb and Cr two-to-one horizontally and also two-to-one vertically, to get 1/2 the data rate of RGB. No standard nomenclature has been adopted to describe vertical subsampling. To get good results using subsampling you should not just drop and replicate pixels, but implement proper decimation and interpolation filters. YCbCr coding is employed by D1 component digital video equipment.