Not only that, but it’s more flexible and powerful than most of the commercial programs you can acquire, and who doesn’t like “free” when it comes to useful applications? It is pretty frustrating how different systems have incompatible file formats too. If you can’t play an AVI file, you have five main tools to use: software, operating system, device, video codec, and audio codec.There are a ton of video converters available for the Mac system (and PCs too) but it turns out that there’s a terrific open source program that offers much of the same functionality and it’s free. Note that two AVI files that look the same may actually contain different codecs-that’s what happens when you can open one but not the other. If you want to play AVI, you not only need to be familiar with different tools/ways/platforms to play, you also need to know about codecs. Then you know that each video file contains a codec. The person who put the video inside the video ‘coded’ the video and the person who wants to open the video (that is you) has to ‘decode’ the video. This site sums it up: “Codec, as a word is an abbreviation of coder/decoder. So, when someone talks about a codec, he or she is talking about two things: coder/encoder plus a decoder. A codec just a coder/encoder combined with a decoder. What’s the relationship between them? Actually, a coder and an encoder are the same thing. Maybe you’ve also heard about codecs, coders, encoders, and decoders, and you’re totally lost. Here’s a definition: “Codec is a small piece of program that plugs into your computer’s operating system and allows the software installed on your computer to perform the “decoding” for the video that has been ‘coded’ with the codec you installed.” So how can you play an AVI file?īefore moving to the main point, let’s talk about codecs. But sometimes you download an AVI file and it won’t play. AVI files are great because they always offer great quality video.

How to play an avi file on a mac