How to Compress an AVI File: The Ultimate Guide

AVI files are very common when working with video. AVI stands for Audio Video Interleave and was introduced by Microsoft in 1992. It’s now a staple video codec that can be run on both Mac and Windows devices, but sometimes you might find a heavy, high quality file too much for your computer to run effectively. Luckily, you can use Pinnacle Studio to compress an AVI file.

What is an AVI file?

An AVI file is a high quality video file that is commonly used across devices. It generally contains much more information than other containers like MPEG and MOV, and as a result the files can be pretty huge.

It’s usually preferable to work with high quality video files like AVI files because the resulting output will be much better. There is less digital noise, fewer artifacts on the frame, and the end result is great.

The downside is the size of the files will be slower to work with, as computers require more processing power to open them, preview them, and edit with them. Compressing an AVI file reduces the size, but the trade-off is that the quality of the final output will be less.

The benefits of compressing an AVI file

If you’re working with a certain amount of limited space like on an external hard drive, it will go a lot further if you compress the files to reduce the size they take up. As well as taking up less space, your computer will be able to run much quicker when working with them during an edit.

Compressed AVI files are also much easier to share. Because the file size is reduced, individual files are quicker to upload and download, making sharing video files online a more seamless process. This is great for if you need to share files quickly with your team to review, and you’re not necessarily worried about the quality being as high as it can be.

Compressing an AVI file takes just a few moments in Pinnacle Studio, once you have imported the AVI file you want to compress into your project.

How to compress an AVI file

  1. To start, open up Pinnacle Studio.
  2. Import your AVI file into Pinnacle Studio by selecting the file in the Import screen.
  3. Drag the video onto the timeline in the video layer.
  4. Navigate to the Export screen.
  5. Select AVI from the Extension tab.
  6. Next to Preset you should be presented with a drop-down menu. Here, Pinnacle Studio provides you with a list of premade settings that you can choose from. Explore the options and choose a smaller file size such as Small or Medium to compress your AVI file.
  7. If you want to create your own custom settings, hit the Edit icon and adjust the settings accordingly. Reducing the size and the bitrate will reduce the size of the file.
  8. Select the destination of where you want your new file to end up.
  9. Finally, simply hit Start Export to begin compressing the file.

Compress AVI files to reduce their size

AVI files are powerful video files that have made their name in the video industry for retaining high quality video and audio tracks that make them great for editing. When using an AVI file the end result can look fantastic, but the downside is that the files tend to be huge which slows down the process and takes up a lot of space. Using Pinnacle Studio to compress AVI files and reduce their size — it can be done easily within the software.

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