avi
What is a .avi file?
video/x-msvideo
AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is a legacy Microsoft multimedia container built on the RIFF structure that interleaves video and audio streams. It predates modern features, lacking robust support for advanced codecs, streaming, and multiple subtitle tracks. It remains common in older video files.
How to use a .avi file
Use an example AVI to test RIFF-based demuxing, legacy codec handling, and converters that modernize older video into MP4 or MKV.
Download example .avi files
- AVI — Motion-JPEG ClipThe clip as Motion-JPEG in a classic AVI (RIFF) container — every frame an independent JPEG. For testing legacy AVI readers, MJPEG decoding, and AVI→modern-codec conversion.
- AVI — DivX (MPEG-4 ASP) ClipThe clip as DivX-style MPEG-4 ASP in an AVI container — the codec that defined early desktop video. For testing MPEG-4 Part 2 decoding and AVI conversion.
- Codec — MPEG-4 Part 2The shared pan-city base plate encoded with MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX/Xvid-compatible). The DivX/Xvid era, tagged XVID in an AVI. Predates H.264 and is still what a great deal of archived material is stored as, so ingest pipelines meet it constantly. Every clip in this group carries the identical picture, so a decoder-support matrix built from them isolates the codec as the only variable.
- Codec — Motion JPEGThe shared pan-city base plate encoded with MJPEG. Every frame is an independent JPEG, with no inter-frame prediction at all. Large, but it makes any frame a clean cut point, which is why cameras and capture cards still emit it. Every clip in this group carries the identical picture, so a decoder-support matrix built from them isolates the codec as the only variable.
- Codec — MS-MPEG-4 v3The shared pan-city base plate encoded with MS-MPEG-4 v3 (msmpeg4v3). Microsoft's non-standard MPEG-4 Part 2 variant — the 'DivX 3' bitstream. Deliberately incompatible with the standard decoder, which makes it a sharp test of whether a pipeline identifies codecs from the bitstream or from the FourCC. Every clip in this group carries the identical picture, so a decoder-support matrix built from them isolates the codec as the only variable.
- Container — AVIOne H.264 elementary stream wrapped in AVI. Every file in this group was produced from the SAME encode with a stream copy, so the compressed video bytes are identical and the container is genuinely the only difference. Microsoft's 1992 container. No B-frame timestamp support and a 4 GB practical limit, but enormous amounts of archived material still live in it.