What is AVI?AVI stands for Audio Video Interleave. It is a special case of the RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format). It is defined by Microsoft. AVI is the most common format for audio/video data on the PC. It is an example of a de facto (by fact) standard.

An AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) file is a sound and motion picture file that conforms to the Microsoft Windows Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) specification. AVI files (which end with an .avi extension) require a special player that may be included with your Web browser or may require downloading. avi vs mkv

Playing an AVI requires two things: video player software and AVI codec. To open the AVI, you need to know how the video was "coded", which means that you need to know what codec you need to use. There are hundreds or thousands of codecs in the world, so it can be an overwhelming task to test them each out individually. Here's the best AVI Players for playing .avi files.

Best AVI Players & AVI Codecs software

KMPlayer

KMPlayer( also known as K-Multimedia Player ) is best AVI player. It is a video player capable to play almost all popular file formats and it shouldn't be confused with KMPlayer (Konqueror Media Player that rns on Linux and some Unix machines ) is a video player for KDE ( KDE is a powerful system for an easy to use desktop environment in Linux and Unix machines ). It is both a plugin for Konqueror, as well as a standalone video player. The KMPlayer can play almost all popular formats like MPEG-1/2/4, OGM, WMV, VCD, AVI, Quicktime, 3GP, RealMedia, MKV, and DVD.

The KMPlayer is all-in-one media player covering various formats such as VCD, DVD, AVI, MKV, Ogg, OGM, 3GP, MPEG-1/2/4, WMV, RealMedia, QuickTime etc. It has an extra feature to play Incomplete/Damaged AVI file, Locked Media Files while downloading or sharing, Compressed Audio Album (zip, rar) and so on.It handles a wide range of subtitles and allows you to capture audio, video, and screenshots in many ways. KMPlayer Download

AVIcodec

AVIcodec is a very useful tool that helps you identify the codec used by video files. As you may know, most video files have a simple AVI, MPEG etc. extensions, however some of them may require additional codecs like DivX or VCD and others. When trying to run such a file, and you don't have the proper codec installed, you will get an error message, or may be limited to audio playback only.

AVIcodec is a free multimedia file analyser for Windows. AVIcodec gives detailed information, especially the codecs needed to play the file, and where to download those codecs if they are missing on your system.

AVIcodec recognized formats: Natively : AVI, ASF & WMV, Real (.rm, .rmvb), Ogg (.ogg, .ogm), Mpeg-(S)VCD-DVD (.mpg, .vob). Others : all those handled by DirectShow (.mp3, ...). AVIcodec Download

MPlayer

The wonderful AVI player MPlayer is a movie player which runs on many systems. It plays most MPEG/VOB, AVI, Ogg/OGM, VIVO, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, RealMedia, Matroska, NUT, NuppelVideo, FLI, YUV4MPEG, FILM, RoQ, PVA files, supported by many native, XAnim, and Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VideoCD, SVCD, DVD, 3ivx, DivX 3/4/5, WMV and even H.264 movies.

MPlayer has an onscreen display (OSD) for status information, nice big antialiased shaded subtitles and visual feedback for keyboard controls. European/ISO 8859-1,2 (Hungarian, English, Czech, etc), Cyrillic and Korean fonts are supported along with 12 subtitle formats (MicroDVD, SubRip, OGM, SubViewer, Sami, VPlayer, RT, SSA, AQTitle, JACOsub, PJS and our own: MPsub). DVD subtitles (SPU streams, VOBsub and Closed Captions) are supported as well. MPlayer Download

MacVCD

MacVCD is a great software to play AVI files. It discover the easy way to play VCD, and almost everything else with this easy to use media player for Mac OS 8/9. MacVCD plays VCD, AVI, DivX, MPEG, video, Quicktime movies and more.

MacVCD offers all the playback features you need and the ease of use you really want from a video player. With Video CD Format recognition, you can play VCDs in just one step. You can also play all your other movies - XVCD, AVI, DivX, MPEG, video, Quicktime movies and more. Use the screen display you prefer - full screen display, or small screen display, or show on your TV. Get the features you want - movie saving, track selection and repeat track features, multi-language and karaoke VCD support with this easy to use video player.

MacVCD also features advanced features such as Hands Free speech activated controls, fast-motion, slow-motion and backwards playback. MacVCD Download

MacVCD X

MacVCD X is easy to use video media player for Mac OS X. MacVCD X plays VCD, SVCD, XVCD, SXVCD, AVI, DivX, xVID, MPEG, WMV, iMovie, video, Quicktime movies and more. Use the screen display you prefer - full screen display, small screen display (floating or regular window), or show on your TV.

Get the features you want - movie saving, track selection and repeat track features, Photo VCD, multi-language and karaoke VCD support with this easy to use video player. MacVCD X also features advanced features such as Hands Free speech activated controls, fast-motion, slow-motion and backwards playback. ..MacVCD X Download

Media Player Codec Pack

The Media Player Codec Pack is a simple to install package of codecs/filters/splitters used for playing back music and movie files. with Media Player Codec Pack you can play 99.9% of files through your media player, along with XCD's, VCD's, SVCD's and DVD's.

Also included in the package are a number of encoder codec's, allowing you to encode files in formats such as DivX. XviD, x264 and many more in your favourite encoding application. Compression types supported include DivX, XviD, x264, h.264 and many more in AVI, MKV, OGM, MP4 files. Video file types supported include 3GPP, AVI, MKV, OGM, MP4, MPG, MPEG, VOB, DAT, FLV, PS, TS, NUV. Audio file types supported include AC3, DTS, AAC, APE, FLAC, TTA, WV, OGG, Vorbis, MO3, IT, XM, S3M, MTM, MOD, UMX. Please Note: Formats such as iTunes, RealMedia and some heavily protected DVD's may require a specific player. Media Player Codec Pack Download