AVI Type 1 and 2
 

Hey all,

I'm seeing that there are two versions of AVI formats. 1 and 2. I googled and couldn't find anything. Could anyone explain to me what the differences are?

Thanks

DV is one of the datastreams which can be packed in an AVI format. The standard AVI packing has an audio stream and a video stream. DV however has merged audio and video streams and thus Microsoft made a special type for DV named Type 1 containing only the DV stream. For the standard and most universal version (Type 2), the audio stream is being extracted and copied in a separate audiostream. while the original audio also remains in the DV stream.Type 2 is more universal. but needs some extra processing power when captured (splitting) and somewhat more space (5%)because of the DV audio is not removed in the DV stream part.

ahh. very interesting. Thanks for the easy to understand explanation. Just one more question then. When importing an AVI Type 1 file into an NLE (in my case, Avid) does it split the video into one track, then the audio into left and right audio tracks?

Yes, depending on the NLE, which interprets the header, it will use (split) DV audio (L and R) for type1 or the AVI audio stream for type2