AVI

File Format
Name	AVI
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Video AVI
Extension(s)	.avi
MIME Type(s)	video/avi, video/x-msvideo, video/vnd.avi, video/msvideo
LoCFDD	fdd000059
PRONOM	fmt/5
Kaitai Struct Spec	avi.ksy
Released	~1992

Audio Video Interleave (AVI) is a multimedia container format originally developed by Microsoft and IBM and based on the RIFF wrapper format. AVI is itself a wrapper that can enclose video and audio bitstreams in many encodings, including Indeo, Sorenson, and Cinepak.

Identification

Files begin with bytes 'R' 'I' 'F' 'F' ?? ?? ?? ?? 'A' 'V' 'I' 0x20.

Specifications

• Windows Dev Center → DirectShow → AVI RIFF File Reference
• AVI description Probably extracted from Video for Windows Programmer's Guide
• Copy of Chapter 4: AVI Files from Video for Windows Programmer's Guide 1993
• RIFF-AVI FILE FORMAT
• Documention page from abcAVI Tag Editor site Has links to copies of AVI documentation at bottom.
• DV Data in the AVI File Format Specification, Version 1.01 Microsoft, 1997
• WAVE and AVI Codec Registries (Historic Registry) Hosted by IANA. Implies use of video/vnd.avi as mimetype.

Links

• Wikipedia: Audio Video Interleave
• Overview of Video for Windows, DirectShow (ActiveMovie), and AVI by John F. McGowan, 1996-2004