Additional extension information
| File type: |
Video |
| Popularity: |
 Widespread |
| Author: |
Microsoft |
| MIME type: | video/avi
application/x-troff-msvideo
video/msvideo
video/x-msvideo
|
A very popular multimedia file format; these .avi files are actually container files that contain both video and audio data (also known as streams).
As the .avi file extension simply indicates a general purpose multimedia container file, the video and audio data within may not be compatible with all computer systems/media players, in these instances a codec is generally required (see links section).
Originally developed by Microsoft back in 1992, the .avi file format conforms to the Microsoft Windows Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) specification, meaning the video/audio data is stored in blocks (or chunks).
Categories
A container file includes both a video stream and an audio stream. You will need a 'codec' (coder/decoder) for the video stream AND the audio stream.
And when you have the codecs which work for one .avi file, they may not (probably won't) work for another .avi file.