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AVI
What is an AVI file?
The old Windows video container. Large files, patchy support on phones.
What AVI is
AVI is a container: a wrapper that holds streams encoded by something else. It is used for archiving.
The extension is .avi, and the full name is Audio Video Interleave. Both matter less than what the file can hold, which is what the rest of this page is about.
Where AVI came from
Microsoft published it in 1992.
A format that has been readable for that long is a format worth trusting with something you want back in ten years.
The specification is published, but by its owner
It is written down and implementable, though the vendor decides what the next version looks like. In practice that is enough for the file to keep opening; it is not enough to be sure of it.
It is a legacy format
It still opens everywhere and is still written by older tools, but nothing new is being built around it. Convert what you mean to keep, and do not choose it for something starting today.
AVI is a box, and the codec is what is in it
It usually holds MJPEG, DivX and Xvid. This is the distinction behind most "why will this not play" questions: two files with the same extension can contain entirely different encodings, and a player that refuses one may be perfectly happy with the other.
It also explains why changing container is often fast and lossless while changing codec is neither. Moving the same stream into a different box rewrites the box; re-encoding rewrites the picture.
What else it can carry
AVI can hold several audio tracks.
It has no place for subtitles, which is the thing most often lost on the way out of a richer container.
What opens AVI
VLC and HandBrake read it, and so do most programs of the same kind.
If a file will not open, the format is rarely the problem — it is more often that the program predates it. Converting to something older is the reliable way past that, and it is what the rest of this site is for.
Opening it in a browser
No browser reads it.
That is the single most common reason to convert it: not that the format is bad, but that the place you want to show the file cannot read it.
It is a delivery format
AVI is meant to be handed over rather than worked in. Editing one is possible and rarely pleasant; the sane approach is to change the source and export again.
What goes wrong with it
The recurring complaints: the files are large for what they contain and support outside its home ground is uneven.
None of these is a reason to avoid the format. They are the things worth knowing before you are surprised by one, which is a different claim and a more useful one.
The facts, in one place
| Extension | .avi |
|---|---|
| Media type | video/x-msvideo |
| Published by | Microsoft |
| First published | 1992 |