AVI stands for Audio Video Interleave and it refers to a file format with the same initials used for the file extension.  AVI files are able to carry multimedia content including audio and video. The first use of AVI files was back in 1992 as part of Microsoft’s Video For Windows system.

The use of AVI files in handling audio and video simultaneously became very popular since its introduction for the Windows platform.  AVI files have even become somewhat standard file extensions when it comes to audio and video files.  This is especially true for movie content which are commonly stored as AVI files.  Whenever people would look for videos, they would almost instantly refer to files that have the .AVI file extension.  With its wide use and popularity, the AVI file format became synonymous with multimedia content.

Over the years, people still use AVI file format in storing multimedia content despite its limitations.  One such limitation is the time coding in the multimedia format.  With this special capability, AVI files are considered not applicable to the TV and movie industry.  AVI file format also does not offer standard information in terms of aspect ratio which means that users need to make manual adjustments in order to get the file’s aspect ratio.  Despite these limitations and the development of newer and more powerful multimedia formats, AVI file format continues to become popular in modern times.  AVI files may not have all the latest handling options for multimedia content but many people still choose to use them for their simplicity and ease of use.  Another great thing about AVI files is that it is able to store video and music files that are clear enough for huge screens but not to big when it comes to file size.  Most newer multimedia file formats may offer greater clarity in the pictures and better configuration options, but these files are sometimes too big resulting slower file reading and/or transmissions.