An AVI file is a video file saved in the Audio Video Interleave (AVI) multimedia container format created by Microsoft. It stores video and audio data that may be encoded in a variety of codecs, including DivX and XviD. AVI files can be opened by various videos players, such as Microsoft Movies & TV, Windows Media Player, and Apple QuickTime Player, which are bundled with their respective operating systems.

AVI file open in Microsoft Movies & TV The AVI format is based on the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) which is a container format that was originally released in 1991 to store multimedia. The AVI format was introduced a year later in 1992 by Microsoft and is still commonly used today. It is supported by a wide variety of video players, but the player must support the codec used to encode the video data to correctly play the video. The AVI video format can be used to store high-quality video and audio and typically uses less compression than other similar video formats such as .MPEG and .MOV. This results in very large AVI file sizes, which can be problematic for users with limited space. NOTE: For additional information, view the FileInfo.com Playing AVI Files help article.