MOV to AVI Converter

Converting MOV to AVI: What This Guide Covers

A .mov is Apple's QuickTime container — the format iPhones, DSLRs and macOS screen recorders write, and the container ISO later based MP4 on. A .avi is Microsoft's RIFF-based Audio Video Interleave, introduced with Video for Windows in 1992. Going from one to the other is never a rewrap: AVI cannot hold the codecs a modern MOV carries, so the video is fully re-encoded. This guide covers the two settings that decide whether that re-encode helps you — the codec and the quality mode — plus the AVI-specific behaviour that surprises people afterwards.

How to Convert MOV to AVI

1. Upload Your MOV File: Drag your .mov onto the page or click "+ Add Files". Several clips can be queued and converted in one batch with the same settings.
2. Open Advanced Options and Set the Video Codec: AVI output opens with MPEG-4 selected for video and MP3 for audio. Switch Video Codec to Xvid, DivX or MS MPEG-4 for older Windows software, or H.264 only if you know the destination player decodes H.264 inside an AVI wrapper.
3. Choose a Compression Mode: Under File Compression you get Quality Preset, Specific file size, Constant Bitrate, Variable Bitrate, Constant Quality and Constraint Quality. On MPEG-4/Xvid/DivX the preset scales your source bitrate — see the table below before leaving it on the default.
4. Trim or Resize, Then Convert: Set Trim to Time Range for a start time and duration, or use Preset Resolutions (height-only; width follows your aspect ratio) to scale down. Click Convert and download the .avi. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark.

Walk-through: Codec and Quality, the Two Settings That Matter

MPEG-4 ASP — the default, and what Xvid and DivX also are — is not a CRF codec. It has no rate-quality model like x264's, so the Quality Preset falls back to scaling the source file's measured bitrate by a fixed multiplier, then allows 1.5× headroom on top for complex scenes. That multiplier is 0.3 + (quality level × 1.2), which produces this ladder:

That is the whole explanation for the most common complaint on this conversion: the default preset asks for more bitrate than the source has, and MPEG-4 ASP is less efficient per bit than the H.264 or HEVC inside your MOV, so the AVI comes out larger. If size matters, drop to Medium or below, or switch to Specific file size and name a number in megabytes.

The manual quality box is the other trap. It is labelled CRF, but on MPEG-4, Xvid, DivX, MS MPEG-4, WMV, MPEG-2 and H.263 our encoder emits it as ffmpeg's -q:v quantiser scale, clamped to 1–31, where lower is better — the inverse of the 0–51 CRF scale people know from H.264. Typing an x264-style 23 there asks for near-worst-case quality, not "web default". Two rate-control contexts currently both apply to this page, so the number the box opens on should not be trusted as a recommendation; set it deliberately or avoid it. If you want manual control, use Constraint Quality, which pairs the same 1–31 scale with a Max bitrate ceiling so a busy scene cannot run away. A value in the 2–5 range is high quality; 8–12 is a visible-compromise zone.

MOV vs AVI: What Survives the Conversion

Microsoft itself now classes DirectShow — the stack AVI playback grew up on — as a legacy feature and points new software at Media Foundation. That is the honest frame for this conversion: you convert to AVI because a specific old tool demands it, not because AVI is better at anything.

Common Problems and How to Fix Them

• The AVI is bigger than the MOV. Expected on the default preset (1.32× source bitrate) with a less efficient codec. Drop to Medium or Low, or use Specific file size.
• Output looks blocky even though I set a high quality number. The CRF box is a 1–31 quantiser here; lower is better. Try 2–4, not 23.
• Audio plays but the picture is blank or green in an old player. The player lacks that decoder. Xvid, DivX and MS MPEG-4 have the widest legacy AVI support; H.264-in-AVI has the narrowest.
• Audio drifts out of sync over a long clip. Screen recordings and low-light phone footage are often variable frame rate, and AVI's header stores a single frame duration for the whole file. Trim to the section you need, or target MP4 instead, which stores per-sample timing.
• Colours look washed out or grey. HDR iPhone footage (Dolby Vision or HLG) gets a plain colour conversion — there is no HDR tone-mapping step anywhere in the pipeline. Export or record an SDR version first.
• Old camcorder footage shows combing lines. Interlaced sources are not deinterlaced; the combing is re-encoded as-is.
• The picture is stretched or squashed. Anamorphic and DV sources carry a non-square pixel aspect ratio that is normalised on output. Set an explicit Width x Height matching the display aspect you want.

When AVI Is the Wrong Target

If nothing in your workflow specifically requires .avi, it is the wrong target. AVI's compression is worse, its metadata capabilities are thinner, and its 32-bit index has to be extended to hold anything long. Convert to AVI when a fixed-function device, an old NLE such as VirtualDub or an early Vegas build, or a piece of scientific or industrial software will only open a RIFF AVI. For anything modern, MOV to MP4 keeps the same codecs at a fraction of the file size, and MOV to MKV puts the video in a container that can hold subtitle and chapter tracks at all, which AVI cannot. Going back the other way is AVI to MOV.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which codec should I choose for the AVI?

Match the destination, not the source. Xvid and DivX have the broadest support in legacy AVI players and older editors, and both are MPEG-4 ASP so they behave identically to the MPEG-4 default. MS MPEG-4 is the safest bet for very old Windows-only tools. MJPEG is enormous but decodes almost everywhere and is frame-independent, which some analysis software requires. Choose H.264 only if you have confirmed the target reads it inside an AVI wrapper — many AVI-era players do not.

Why is my AVI bigger than the MOV I started with?

Two reasons stack. First, the default Quality Preset targets 1.32× your source's bitrate, so it is asking for a bigger file before compression even starts. Second, MPEG-4 ASP needs materially more bits than the H.264 or HEVC in a modern MOV to look the same. Set the preset to Medium or lower, or use Specific file size, and the output will land where you want it.

The quality box says CRF — is 23 a good value?

No. On this page that field is not an x264 CRF; for MPEG-4, Xvid, DivX, MS MPEG-4, WMV and MPEG-2 our encoder passes it to ffmpeg as -q:v on a 1–31 scale where 1 is best. A 23 there is near the bottom of the range. Use 2–5 for high quality, or leave the manual modes alone and use Quality Preset or Specific file size instead.

Will subtitles, chapters or QuickTime metadata survive?

No. AVI has no standardised subtitle stream, no chapter structure and no equivalent of QuickTime's metadata atoms, so soft subtitles, chapter markers, creation-date atoms and camera metadata are all dropped. Keep captions as a separate .srt next to the video, or burn them into the picture before converting. If you want a container that can carry them at all, convert to MKV and attach the subtitle files there with a muxer.

Does HDR footage from a recent iPhone convert correctly?

Not to an HDR AVI, no — AVI's MPEG-4 codecs are 8-bit SDR. There is no tone-mapping stage in our pipeline, so Dolby Vision and HLG clips get a straight colour conversion and typically come out flat, grey or washed out. The fix is upstream: turn HDR video off in the Camera settings, or export an SDR copy from Photos or your editor, then convert that.

What happens to a portrait clip shot on a phone?

iPhone MOV files store orientation as a display-matrix rotation flag rather than rotating the pixels. AVI has no such field, so the rotation has to be baked into the frames during the re-encode — which also means the output's stored width and height swap to match. If a specific old player still shows it sideways, set an explicit Width x Height in the portrait orientation you want.

Is 2 GB still a hard limit for AVI files?

The original 1992 index (idx1) uses 32-bit offsets, which is where the familiar ~2 GB ceiling comes from. The OpenDML AVI 2.0 extension added a segmented index (indx) that lifts it, and modern writers use it, but genuinely old software may only understand the original index and stop reading at the boundary. For anything long, either trim the clip with Video Cutter first or pick a container without that history.

Can I keep the file small without hunting through the quality modes?

Yes — pick Specific file size and type a target in megabytes; the encoder works backwards from that number instead of from your source's bitrate. If you have already converted and just need the result smaller, run the .avi through the video compressor, which exposes percentage-of-original targets that the convert page hides.

What happens to my file after the conversion?

It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours. Nothing is shared, published or made searchable, there is no sign-up, and no watermark is added to the output.