Audio Video Interleaved (also
Audio Video Interleave), known by its initials
AVI, is a multimedia
container format introduced by
Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its
Video for Windows software. AVI
files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback. Like the
DVD video format, AVI files support multiple streaming audio and video, although these features are seldom used. Most AVI files also use the file format extensions developed by the
Matrox OpenDML group in February 1996. These files are supported by Microsoft, and are unofficially called "AVI 2.0".