Converting AVI to MP4

By MP4 Guru • November 16, 2006

AVI, or Audio Video Interleave, is a very common format for storing video data on personal computers. When you compress raw video on your computer, most often the output is given in the AVI form. But sometimes you may need to convert AVI to MP4.

Despite popular notions to the contrary, the AVI is not a certain type of video encoding. The AVI is merely a container format for any kind of video. The video data stream inside may have been encoded by any of the popular codec types, or even not encoded at all. In fact, some video cams and TV capture cards offer you the option of saving the data in the form of an AVI file. But in most cases you’ll find that the file saved thus is not compressed. Uncompressed or raw video is massive, and half an hour of full-screen video captured through your TV card can completely fill up even your modern, high-density hard disk drive. Which is why video compression is necessary in the first place.

The word MP4, on the other hand, can refer either to a container format, or a video encoding algorithm. Most often, however, MP4 files consist of MP4 containers containing MP4-encoded video. Some AVI containers contain MP4-video, too.

Why and when should you need to convert AVI to MP4? Suppose you see a movie on your friend’s computer that you like. You want to get a copy from him, but you want to watch it on your way to work perhaps, or in some other situation that makes it necessary to put the movie on your hand-held portable video device. Perhaps you have a latest, fifth-generation iPod, also known as the video iPod, or maybe a Sony PSP, and you want to watch the movie on it. How do you go about it?

Both the video iPod and the PSP, not to mention many similar portable video devices, use MP4 as their native multimedia file format. Apple’s online music store iTunes sells its music and video in the MP4 format. In order to be able to watch a video on your portable device, you need to convert AVI to MP4.

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