AVI File Extension

• AVI Format

AVI means Audio Video Interleave or Interleaved. It is a video container format that was created by Microsoft following the Windows for Video program. AVI is very similar to DVD videos as it can support multiple streaming and synchronous audio-video playbacks.

AVI files follow the RIFF format, which divides data into different blocks. These blocks contain certain information about the file like the metadata, audio-video data, and text data. To open this file, a compatible player and all the necessary codecs have to be present. AVI movies come with the AVI file extension and are easily played by the Windows Media Player, being a Microsoft product.

• AVI Codec

Downloading of codecs for a Windows computer is not required to play AVI videos. The later versions of the Windows Media Play can run these videos swiftly, as AVI is one of the formats that are native to the system. However, when playing this file on a different machine, all necessary codecs have to be downloaded and installed. Codecs are programs that processes the data contained in the blocks within AVI files. Without the codecs, the video won’t run even if the media player installed on the computer recognizes the file.

• How to Play AVI

While AVI files will almost always play in a Windows computer being one of the native files of the Windows Media Player, there are a few instances that it will not. For these cases, a codec upgrade may be necessary. Download the needed codecs and install them. Sometimes, installing the latest version of the Windows Media Player will easily solve the problem. AVI support the H.262 format and all the codecs associated to it.

On the other hand, QuickTime won’t play AVI files. In order to make an AVI video usable by a Macintosh computer and the QuickTime player, a different media player has to be installed. Another option is to convert the AVI file into a format that can be easily processed by QuickTime, which in this case, are the MOV files.