What's a good app to convert AVI video files to something more usable

[hal]

thermarest wrote:
use VLC on Mac, Windows or iOS to play the .avi files. No need to convert. VLC Is the standard play-it-all swiss army knife of media players. Free and open source. No ads or crapware.

I THIRD this - the last thing you want to do is re-encode it with handbrake or youtube.

[Article Accelerator]

I too recommend using VLC to play files with this lame encoding.

But hey, fellas, we're too late—DP is already gone…

[silvarios]

hal wrote:
[quote=thermarest]
use VLC on Mac, Windows or iOS to play the .avi files. No need to convert. VLC Is the standard play-it-all swiss army knife of media players. Free and open source. No ads or crapware.

I THIRD this - the last thing you want to do is re-encode it with handbrake or youtube.
Why?

[kj4btkljv]

silvarios wrote:
Why?

It reduces the quality of the video and/or audio in the original file.

Jeff

[AllGold]

The irony is the .avi straight out of camera is probably more compatible overall than most of the conversions you would do. It just so happens that Quicktime on the Mac, with the default install, doesn't read it.

You could add plug-ins to Quicktime, but I agree with others that a better solution is just to use VLC on the Mac.

[fauch]

To be fair you need a codec on Windows as well (at least you used to)...

But I agree most people will be able to open avi with no problem...