Cut AVI

How to Cut AVI Videos Online

1. Upload Your AVI File: Drag and drop or click "Add Files" to select AVI files from old DVD rips, DivX/Xvid downloads, surveillance camera exports, VirtualDub captures, or legacy camcorder recordings. Batch is supported — drop in multiple AVI files and apply the same cut range to each.
2. Set Start Time and Duration (VIDEO_TRIM): Enter a start time and a duration to keep. Both fields accept seconds (12.5) or HH:MM:SS.sss format (00:01:30.500). Add multiple trim segments to extract several clips from one source — each pair produces its own output AVI file.
3. Choose Codec and Quality (Optional): Default output keeps AVI as the container with MPEG-4 video. Switch to DivX or Xvid for compatibility with legacy DivX-certified DVD players, HuffYUV for lossless intermediate editing, MJPEG for frame-by-frame editor compatibility, or H.264 / H.265 if you want a smaller file in an AVI wrapper. Adjust quality with the preset (Lowest / Low / Medium / High / Highest), set a CRF (0-51 for H.264, 0-63 for VP9-style codecs), or pick a target bitrate. Resize via VIDEO_RESOLUTION_PRESET to 1080p / 720p / 480p / 360p / 240p, or scale by percentage.
4. Cut and Download: Click Cut. Files process in your browser session — download individually or as a ZIP. No sign-up, no watermark, no upload to a third-party server.

Why Cut AVI Files?

AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) is the Microsoft container Windows shipped with in 1992 and the de facto archive format for DivX/Xvid downloads, VirtualDub captures, security camera DVRs, and a generation of camcorders. Modern apps prefer MP4, but AVI files still pile up — typically large, often hour-long, and full of material you don't need. Cutting AVI is useful for:

• Extracting clips from old DivX / Xvid downloads — A 700 MB Xvid AVI rip from the Kazaa / DC++ era often holds a 90-minute movie at 480p. Pull the 30-second scene you want to share without re-encoding the whole file or transcoding to MP4 first.
• Trimming archived AVI captures — Old VirtualDub or HuffYUV lossless captures from VHS digitization runs are often 20-60 GB per tape. Cut to the chapter or commercial break you actually want before archiving to cloud or a NAS.
• Removing intros and dead air from legacy recordings — Strip the 30 seconds of color bars and tape leader from a digitized VHS, the long pause before action starts in a hunting-cam AVI, or the title card from a 1990s home-video transfer.
• Pulling evidence clips from surveillance DVR exports — Most consumer DVRs (Lorex, Swann, Hikvision older firmware, Q-See) export proprietary AVI with MJPEG or MPEG-4 video. Cut to the 60-second window when motion happened so you can email it instead of shipping a 4 GB nightly file.
• Reducing file size for sharing — A 5-minute clip from a 90-minute AVI is roughly 18× smaller. That brings hour-long camcorder transfers under Gmail's 25 MB cap, Discord's 8 MB / 25 MB Nitro cap, or WhatsApp's 16 MB limit without converting format.
• Preparing AVI source for editing — Cut down to the segment you'll actually use in VirtualDub, Premiere Pro, Resolve, or Shotcut. Smaller source files import and scrub faster, especially on older codecs the editor has to decode in software.

For a different output container after cutting, see AVI to MP4 or AVI to MOV. To compress without trimming, see Compress AVI.

Stream-copy vs Re-encode — When to Use Which

Property	Stream copy (default)	Re-encode (MPEG-4 / DivX / Xvid / H.264)
Speed	Seconds for any file size	Proportional to clip length and codec
Quality	Bit-identical to source	Slight loss unless CRF 18-23
Cut precision	Snaps to nearest keyframe (often 5-10s for old AVI)	Frame-accurate
Output codec	Same as source (MPEG-4 / DivX / Xvid / etc.)	Any: MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid, HuffYUV, H.264, H.265, MJPEG
Audio	Original MP3 / AC-3 / PCM preserved	Re-encoded (MP3, AAC, AC-3, or PCM)
File size	Proportional to duration kept	Variable by CRF / bitrate
Best for	Quick extraction, lossless	Frame-accurate cuts, smaller file, codec change

Old AVI from DivX/Xvid encoders typically places keyframes every 250-300 frames (~10-12 seconds at 24 fps), so stream-copy may snap your cut back several seconds. Enable re-encode for frame-accurate trims — useful when you need the cut to land on the exact moment a doorbell rings on a security clip or a goal is scored on a digitized tape.

AVI Codec Quick Guide

Codec	Quality vs Size	Default Bitrate	Best for
MPEG-4 (default)	Good / Medium	~1500 kbps	General AVI output, broadest legacy player support
DivX	Good / Medium	~1200 kbps	DivX-certified DVD players, set-top boxes from 2003-2010
Xvid	Good / Medium	~1200 kbps	Open-source DivX alternative, Kodi / VLC playback
HuffYUV	Lossless / Very large	n/a	Editing intermediates, no quality loss between cuts
MJPEG	Frame-independent / Large	~8000 kbps	Editor scrubbing, surveillance DVR matching
H.264 (in AVI)	Excellent / Small	CRF 23	Modern playback if AVI container is required
H.265 (in AVI)	Excellent / Smallest	CRF 28	Newest playback, smallest file (limited AVI player support)

Lower CRF = higher quality and larger file. CRF 23 is "visually lossless" for H.264 in AVI. If you don't need the AVI container, AVI to MP4 gives broader device support and similar size.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I cut an AVI without re-encoding it?

Yes — stream-copy is the default. The original video and audio bytes are written into a new AVI container without going through a decoder/encoder, so the cut clip is bit-identical to the source segment. The only caveat is keyframe alignment: AVI files written by old DivX/Xvid encoders often have keyframes every 10-12 seconds, so the cut may snap back a few seconds from your specified start time. Enable re-encode in step 3 for a frame-accurate cut.

Why does my old DivX/Xvid AVI cut a few seconds earlier than I asked for?

Stream-copy mode can only cut at keyframes (I-frames), and the encoders that produced most pre-2010 DivX/Xvid AVI files placed keyframes far apart — every 250-300 frames is typical, which is 10-12 seconds at 24 fps or 5-6 seconds at 48 fps. Asking to start at 00:01:23 may snap back to 00:01:14 if that's the nearest preceding keyframe. Re-encoding produces a frame-accurate cut at the cost of some encode time.

My AVI is from a security DVR — will the cut still play in the same viewer?

Almost always, yes. Stream-copy preserves the codec exactly — if the DVR wrote MPEG-4 in AVI and the bundled viewer played it, the cut clip plays in the same viewer. The exception is proprietary AVI variants from some Hikvision, Dahua, and older Lorex firmware that include vendor-specific metadata; those occasionally need the original viewer's "Backup AVI" mode. For sharing, use AVI to MP4 after cutting — every modern phone, browser, and chat app plays MP4.

What's the maximum AVI file size or length?

There's no fixed cap on our side. Cutting runs in your browser session, so the practical limit is your device's RAM and how long you're willing to wait for the file to load. Multi-GB camcorder transfers and hours-long surveillance archives work fine. Stream-copy is fast enough that even 4-hour AVI files cut in well under a minute since no decoding happens. Note that the AVI format itself has a legacy 4 GB single-file limit on classic AVI (OpenDML / AVI 2.0 raises this to 16 EB) — most modern AVI files are OpenDML and unaffected.

Should I keep AVI or cut and convert to MP4?

If a specific player, NLE, or DVR ecosystem requires AVI, keep AVI. Otherwise, MP4 is smaller for the same quality, plays natively on every phone and browser, and uploads cleanly to YouTube / Drive / WhatsApp without re-encode. The recommended workflow is: cut first in stream-copy mode (fast, lossless), then run AVI to MP4 on the cut clip — that's roughly 12× faster than transcoding the full source AVI to MP4 then trimming.

Can I extract just the audio from a cut AVI?

Yes. Cut the AVI to the segment you want, then run AVI to MP3, AVI to WAV, or AVI to AAC on the result. Cutting first is faster because the audio extraction only has to process the clip, not the full source.

Can I make multiple cuts from one AVI in a single pass?

Yes. Add multiple trim segments — each pair of start time + duration produces a separate output AVI clip. Useful for pulling several flagged motion events from a long surveillance recording, splitting a digitized VHS into chapters, or extracting all the relevant scenes from a long DivX rip in one batch.

Does cutting remove the audio track?

No, by default both video and audio streams are copied to the output AVI. AVI typically carries MP3, AC-3, or PCM audio — all are preserved bit-identically in stream-copy mode. If you specifically want a silent clip (for over-dubbing, looping background, or muted social posts), set the audio codec option to "no audio" before cutting and the output will be a video-only AVI.

What's the difference between cutting and trimming an AVI?

Same operation in practice. Some editors reserve "trimming" for shaving the start and end while keeping the middle, and "cutting" for extracting a middle portion or splitting at a point. XConvert's AVI cutter handles all three patterns — set start time to your in-point and duration to how much to keep. See also Trim AVI for the same workflow framed slightly differently, or Compress AVI if you want size reduction without changing the duration.