AVI to AV1 Converter

How to Convert AVI to AV1 Online

1. Upload Your AVI File: Drag and drop or click "Add Files" to select AVI files. Old DivX / Xvid downloads, archived TV captures, MJPEG camcorder recordings, and other Windows-era video files all work. Batch is supported.
2. Pick a Quality Setting: Default is AV1 with a balanced quality preset. Choose a Quality Preset (Highest → Lowest), target a percentage of the original size or an exact size in MB, or fine-tune the AV1 CRF (range 0-63 — 23 = visually lossless, 30 = balanced default, 36 = small). The output is AV1 video, typically inside an MP4 wrapper.
3. Resize or Trim (Optional): Pick a Resolution Preset (4320p / 2160p / 1440p / 1080p / 720p / 480p / 360p / 240p / 144p), enter custom width × height, scale by percentage, or trim with a start time + duration in HH:MM:SS.sss format. Old AVIs often benefit from being downscaled to 720p / 480p — DivX upscales rarely look good after re-encoding.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared.

Why Convert AVI to AV1?

AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is Microsoft's container from 1992, used for decades to wrap DivX, Xvid, MJPEG, MPEG-2, and uncompressed video. The codecs inside are typically 20+ years old and produce huge files. AV1, released in 2018 by the Alliance for Open Media (Google, Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, Mozilla), is the most efficient royalty-free codec available — roughly 30-50% smaller than H.264 and 20% smaller than H.265 at the same visual quality. Common reasons to convert AVI → AV1:

• Modernizing legacy DivX / Xvid archives — A typical 1 GB AVI of a TV capture or 2000s-era download can shrink to 200-400 MB AV1 at high-quality settings, visually near-identical for most content. Multiply that across a multi-year camcorder library and the storage savings are dramatic.
• Royalty-free re-encoding for streaming — DivX and Xvid had complex licensing histories. AV1 is unambiguously royalty-free for commercial streaming, paid platforms, and embedded video — no MPEG-LA pool, no per-stream fees.
• Future-proofing the archive — YouTube, Netflix, Twitch, Vimeo, and Meta all encode in AV1 today, and Apple added AV1 hardware decode starting with the iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs (2023). Converting old AVI to AV1 aligns the archive with where streaming is heading.
• HTML5 <video> and modern browser embedding — AVI doesn't play in any browser. AV1 in MP4 plays directly in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari 17+ (macOS Sonoma / iOS 17). See also AVI to MP4 when you need H.264 fallback.
• Smaller files for cloud storage and backup — Re-encoding an AVI library to AV1 typically halves the storage footprint, useful for Backblaze, S3 Glacier, and other long-term backup services priced per GB.
• Fixing playback issues with old AVIs — Modern players sometimes fail on legacy AVIs (codec missing, A/V desync, partial corruption). Re-encoding to AV1 normalizes the file and tends to clean up mild sync drift.

AVI vs AV1 — Format Comparison

AV1 Quality / CRF Quick Guide

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is AV1 encoding so much slower than H.264 or H.265?

AV1 uses substantially more complex tools — larger block partitions, more intra prediction modes, and refined motion estimation — to squeeze more compression out of every frame. In practice that means AV1 encoding is often 5-10× slower than H.264 at comparable quality. The trade-off is a much smaller output file. For a one-off archive conversion the wait is usually worth it; for a quick share where size doesn't matter, AVI to MP4 with H.264 is faster.

Will my old DivX / Xvid AVI actually be smaller as AV1?

Almost always yes, often dramatically. DivX and Xvid are MPEG-4 Part 2 codecs from the early 2000s — AV1 is roughly 60-70% more efficient than that generation. A 1 GB DivX AVI commonly converts to a 250-400 MB AV1 file at the same or better visual quality. The exact ratio depends on source bitrate and content (animation compresses better than grainy live action).

What container will my AV1 output use?

XConvert wraps the AV1 stream in an MP4 container by default — AV1-in-MP4 is supported by Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari 17+, VLC, MPV, and most modern players. If you want AV1 inside MKV or WebM instead, see AVI to MKV or AVI to WebM for those output paths.

Can my devices actually decode AV1?

Hardware AV1 decode is widespread but not universal. Devices that handle AV1 in hardware: Intel 11th-gen+ CPUs and Arc GPUs, NVIDIA RTX 30/40, AMD RDNA2+, Apple M3 / iPhone 15 Pro and newer, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and newer, most 2022+ smart TVs. Older devices fall back to software decode, which is fine up to 1080p on a modern desktop CPU but stutters at 4K. If you need universal playback today, AVI to MP4 with H.264 is the safer choice.

Should I pick AV1 or H.265 / HEVC for my old AVI archive?

AV1 if your goal is the smallest possible files and royalty-free licensing — best for cloud-stored archives, web embedding, and future-proofing. H.265 if you need wider device support today (everything Apple since 2017, most 2018+ smart TVs) and don't mind the licensing pools. AV1 wins on size; H.265 wins on existing playback compatibility outside the latest hardware.

Will the audio survive the conversion?

Yes. The AVI's MP3 / AC-3 / PCM audio is decoded and re-encoded to AAC or Opus alongside the AV1 video. Audio quality is preserved at typical bitrates (AAC 128-192 kbps is transparent for most music and dialog). Multi-channel AC-3 surround is downmixed to stereo by default unless you keep the channel count explicitly.

Can I batch convert a folder of old AVI files?

Yes. Drop in a whole folder of AVI files and they convert sequentially on our servers. Useful for modernizing a multi-year DivX / Xvid library — leave it running and download the AV1 results individually or as a single ZIP. Because AV1 encoding is slow, batches of long files can take a while.

What if my AVI is corrupted or has A/V sync issues?

Re-encoding cleanly from the start often fixes mild corruption and small sync drift, since the AV1 encoder reads the decoded frames and timestamps fresh. Severely corrupted AVIs may fail or produce truncated output — try VLC's "Convert / Save" repair feature or a tool like FixAVI first, then run the cleaned file through XConvert for the AV1 encode.