What is .avi file extension ?

The file extension AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is used to save multimedia formats, and allows you to store and synchronous audio and video information for simultaneous playback. The .AVI file extension is derived from the .RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format) file extension, and stores the file data on one .RIFF block, which is identified by the ‘FourCC tag’ format, (sequences of four bytes). This main block is then divided into two smaller mandatory blocks and also one optional block. The first mandatory block is coded with the “hdrl” tag, and acts as the file header and also contains metadata such as the video’s playback size and frame rate. The second mandatory block is coded by the “movi” tag, and contains all the audio and visual data. The optional block is coded by the “idx1″ tag, and indexes the remaining data contained in the file.

The .AVI file extension was first used in 1992 by Microsoft and has since then been replaced by more modern file formats such as .MPEG and .MOV. Despite this though .AVI is still one of the most popular formats for storing synchronised video images, as it can store both audio and visual data in almost any compression format including Intel Real Time, Motion JPEG, Editable MPEG, RealVideo, and Full Frame (uncompressed).

If you want to find out more about the hundreds of file name extension in use, visit online file extension library such as file-extension.com, which provide full lists and descriptions of all known file extensions and their uses. If you want more detail you can search for individual file extensions on the various online software support websites, and also Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia, provides some in depth articles on the more common file extensions.

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