Why does my AVI play sound but no video?

The container is readable but the video codec inside is not supported by your player. VLC includes its own decoders and normally fixes it immediately, with no codec pack required.

Should I convert AVI to MP4?

If you need it to play on phones, TVs or in browsers, yes. HandBrake converts to MP4 with H.264, which is supported almost everywhere, and the files are usually smaller too.

File extensions

How to open a .avi file

Audio Video Interleave · Video

An .avi file is an old Microsoft video container. VLC plays essentially all of them. Failures are almost always the codec inside rather than the container itself.

What a .avi file actually is

AVI dates from 1992 and predates modern video by a long way. It is a wrapper: the actual video inside might be DivX, Xvid, MJPEG or something more obscure.

Because the format is so old, AVI files in circulation use a far wider spread of codecs than anything recent, which is why playback is more variable than with MP4.

Why it will not open

Windows Media Player handles the container but not every codec that might be inside. The classic symptom is audio playing over a black screen, or a green and glitching picture.

Renaming it to an extension you can open will not help: changing the extension does not convert the file, it only changes what Windows tries to open it with.

Step by step

Windows

01Install VLC, which bundles its own decoders and plays essentially any AVI.
02Do not install a codec pack. They were standard advice in 2008 and are now a common source of system instability, and VLC makes them unnecessary.
03MPC-HC is a lighter alternative that also carries its own decoders.
04To convert to something modern, HandBrake re-encodes AVI to MP4 with H.264.

macOS

01QuickTime plays few AVI files. Install VLC or IINA instead.

What usually goes wrong

Codec packs cause more problems than they solve

Installing a codec pack changes system-wide decoding for every application and is a well-known cause of hard-to-diagnose playback faults. A player that carries its own decoders, like VLC, affects nothing outside itself.

Programs that open .avi

Our pick, in order. Every one links to the publisher's official download URL and the SHA-256 hash of the installer. Once you have downloaded it, you can check the file against our index before you run it.

If you end up downloading one of these from somewhere other than the publisher, what you can and cannot verify about that is worth two minutes.

Also registers .avi in its manifest

Taken straight from publisher manifests. Some of these handle the format for a narrow purpose rather than as their main job.

Common questions

Why does my AVI play sound but no video?: The container is readable but the video codec inside is not supported by your player. VLC includes its own decoders and normally fixes it immediately, with no codec pack required.
Should I convert AVI to MP4?: If you need it to play on phones, TVs or in browsers, yes. HandBrake converts to MP4 with H.264, which is supported almost everywhere, and the files are usually smaller too.