What are "avi" files?
 

Hey I have been trying to download some video files and I can get all the mpegs to play on quicktime fine but avi files I seem not to be able to. Quicktime said that it lacked the processor to fully play the file. I downloaded windows media player for macs but that was unsuccessful as well. What is an avi file and what program do I need to play them is my question I guess?

I'm surprised your QT couldn't play them. Mine can but I have xtra QT plug-ins (codecs). Try VLC (it's free) http://www.videolan.org/ (it also plays vcd's, dvd's, divx, & more.) Just use whichever mirror site (I used France.) There's also MPlayer: http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/ Actually, DivX can create a form of avi so that may complicate things. But the above 2 players should be able to play them.

AVI stands for Audio Video Interleave. It is a special case of the RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format). AVI is defined by Microsoft. AVI is the most common format for audio/video data on the PC.

When I first encountered .avi, I used the Doctor avi solution which changed avis to .mov files, that can be read by Quictime fine.
Problem is, the .mov files are twice as big...