Three best Solutions for Watching AVI Movies in Mac (macOS High Sierra included)

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Audio Video Interleaved (AVI) files are a common format for compressed video clips. Files downloaded from the internet often use this format. There are several ways to view them in Mac OS X. Mac OS X by default doesn’t natively support playback of .avi file format. But AVI is widely used across the internet for video clips,movies etc. So, here are 3 Different ways to play & watch avi files on Mac OS X. 

 
Way 1 – Using External Video Players 

Although, the default media & video player for Mac OS X – Quicktime 10 doesn’t support playback of.avi format. External Media players like VLC, UMPlayer, 5kPlayer etc do support it. These external media player are sometimes free or they may be even paid, we came across a good article which covers the free video players available to watch .avi videos. 

• VLC Player is a cross platform application with a mac version available for download from the VLC website.
• MPlayer has a simpler interface but fewer features. It is available from the MPlayer website
• Any remaining AVIs not compatible with the above two, should be able to be handled by Mac OS 9 QuickTime or QuickTime for Windows, each of which have the older versions of the Intel Indeo codec.
• Windows Media Player 9 is an application developed by Microsoft for Mac OS X.
• Elmedia Player is an application developed by Eltima Software for Mac OS X.
• Note: Microsoft has ceased the software’s development for Mac OS X and instead promotes another third party plugin for QuickTime called Flip4Mac (See below).

Way 2 – Using Quicktime Plug-Ins on Mac OS X 

This method is probably the good method to watch .avi video files on Mac OS X as these files would be played within Quicktime itself!. For example, Perian is a codec tool for Mac OS X which installs the codecs for non-supported file formats so that they can be played within Quicktime itself. 

QuickTime Plug-Ins 

Several third party plug-ins are available to allow users to watch .avi files using Apple’s native multimedia media program. These are installed into the QuickTime plug-ins folder and usually require little or no setting up. 

• Perian. Currently the best and most all-encompassing Quicktime plugin that will guarentee to play almost any codec within an AVI file.Includes support for MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivX, H.264, FLV1, FSV1, VP6, H263I, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), MPEG Layer II Audio, AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3, (i.e loads of Codecs), to play windows media (.wma,.wmv) files you will also need Flip4Mac (See below).
• 3ivX codec. A free version of this MPEG4 codec is available for Mac users on their download page.
• A52 codec. This codec is very useful for viewing .avi files encoded with A52 audio.
• AC3 codec. This codec is very useful for viewing .avi files encoded with AC3 audio.
• DivX for Mac codec. A free version is available for watching DivX movies, a commercial solution for encoding movies is available as a free 15 day demo. Free beta versions (including DivX 6 for Intel based macs) are also available from labs.divx.com
• Flip4Mac. A free solution, offering playback of AVI, ASF, ASX and non-DRM protected WMA and WMV files.

Way 3 – Converting the AVI Files on Mac & then Playing them 

This option is the least recommended one as it takes some time to Convert Videos, and you may want to view the videos urgently. Also long videos may take some time to convert, while nevertheless converting is a good enough option after the VLC & external media player one as long as you’re a Quicktime player fan. Apple Quicktime can play formats like .mp4 formats so you can use video converters to convert the files into mp4 format to play them in default Quicktime Player. We have compiled a list of top Video converters for Mac OS X which are free as well and will surely get the job done. We only suggest you the best AVI converter for Mac - Pavtube Video Converter for Mac. With it, you can convert any AVI (including SD/HD/4K/2D/3D AVI) on Mac ((macOS Sierra, El Capitan Yosemite, Mavericks, Lion included) for playing AVI on QuickTime, MacBook etc smoothly. Windows user get Pavtube Video Converter to convert AVI on Windows (Windows 10 included) for playing AVI on Windows Media Player etc. 

Hot search: MP4 to QuickTime ǀ AVI to QuickTime ǀ MOV to QuickTime ǀ AVI to Plex ǀ AVI to PS4 Pro ǀ AVI to PS Vita

Thus, these are the ways by which you can view .avi videos on Mac OS X. If you are using any other workaround we will be happy to know how you get it done.