File extension AVI is used for multimedia files in Audio Video Interleave format. An AVI sample file is provided. Free AVI players and editors are listed.

File Extension: .AVI

MIME Type: video/x-msvideo

File Content: Audio and video data.

What is AVI? AVI is a short name for Audio Video Interleave, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology

Technical notes on MPEG file formats:

• AVI files use RIFF container file format.
• AVI files support multiple streaming audio and video.
• AVI files support various codecs. Examples are: Cinepak Codec by Radius, DivX 5.0.1 Codec, Intel 4:2:0 Video 5.10, Microsoft Video 1, MS MPEG-4 3688 V1, etc.

Here are the first 128 bytes of a sample AVI file dumped in HEX values:

52 49 46 46 30 9b 0f 00 41 56 49 20 4c 49 53 54 RIFF0...AVI.LIST
d4 07 00 00 68 64 72 6c 61 76 69 68 38 00 00 00 ....hdrlavih8...
6a 04 01 00 8a 57 02 00 43 5c 41 44 10 01 00 00 j....W..C.AD....
69 00 00 00 0c 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 50 00 00 i............P..
40 01 00 00 f0 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 c0 b6 00 00 ................
77 18 04 00 00 00 56 36 4c 49 53 54 74 00 00 00 w.....V6LISTt...
73 74 72 6c 73 74 72 68 38 00 00 00 76 69 64 73 strlstrh8...vids
63 76 69 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 cvid............

"RIFF" is the magic number of RIFF files. "AVI" identifies the AVI data.

AVI sample file: Click sample.avi to download.

Audio and video data stored in AVI files can be retrieved, played or edited by popular free software:

• Windows Media Player - Plays AVI and other multimedia files.
• MPlayer - Plays AVI files and other multimedia files.
• VirtualDub - Edits AVI files and other multimedia files.
• AviSynth - Edits AVI files through processing scripts.