Editing Audio Video Interleave (section)

==Limitations==
Since its introduction in the early 90s, new computer video techniques have been introduced which the original AVI specification did not anticipate.

* The original AVI specification does not provide a standardized way to encode [[aspect ratio (image)|aspect ratio]] information, although the later OpenDML (AVI 2.0) specification does. Consequently, older players may not select the right aspect ratio automatically (though it may be possible to do so manually).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/PixelFrames.aspx|title=Determining the Shape of Pixels and Frames|website=[[Microsoft.com]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080113222043/http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/PixelFrames.aspx|archive-date=2008-01-13|date=May 2003}}</ref>
*There are several competing approaches to including a [[time code]] in AVI files, which affects usability of the format in film and television post-production, although it is widely used.<ref>{{cite mailing list |last1=Rhodes |first1=Phil |mailing-list=FFmpeg-user |title=AVI and Timecode |url=https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2014-December/024588.html |date=December 12, 2014}}</ref> For WAV audio files, [[Broadcast Wave Format|Broadcast Wave]] (BWF) extensions were designed to standardize post-production metadata, but an equivalent for AVI files has not emerged. Some parties are known to write BWF chunks into AVI for metadata.<ref>{{cite web |title=AVI MetaEdit - Technical Metadata |url=https://mediaarea.net/AVIMetaEdit/tech_view_help |website=mediaarea.net}}</ref>
* AVI was not intended to contain video using any compression technique that requires access to future video frame data beyond the current frame ([[B-frame]]). Approaches exist to support modern video compression techniques (such as [[MPEG-4]]) that rely on this function, although this is beyond the intent of the original specification and may cause problems with playback software which does not anticipate this use.<ref>{{cite web |title=Using B-frames |url=https://www.avidemux.org/admWiki/doku.php?id=using:b-frames |website=Avidemux}}</ref>
*AVI cannot contain some specific types of [[variable bitrate]] (VBR) data reliably (such as [[MP3]] audio at sample rates below 32&nbsp;kHz).
*Overhead for AVI files at the resolutions and frame rates normally used to encode standard definition feature films is about 5 MB per hour of video, the significance of which varies with the application.
* AVI files cannot contain attachments such as fonts and subtitles. Consequently, subtitles must be distributed in a separate file or hardcoded into the video stream.

More recent container formats (such as [[Matroska]], [[Ogg]] and [[MP4]]) solve all these problems, although software is freely available to both create and correctly replay AVI files which use the techniques described here.