An old container that refuses to disappear
AVI dates to the early nineties and was the default way Windows stored video for well over a decade. Consumer camcorders wrote to it, early digital cameras recorded clips in it, and countless training videos, depositions and family archives were burned to discs in it before newer formats arrived.
Because it is a container rather than a codec, two AVI files can hold entirely different kinds of video and audio inside. This is why some AVI files refuse to play on a modern machine while others open fine, and it is why some transcription tools handle one of your files and not the next.
Getting a usable transcript from archive footage
Old AVI footage usually carries old audio habits with it: a single microphone mounted on the camera, capturing a room rather than a person, with the tape hiss or fan noise of the equipment underneath. That is the hardest kind of material for any transcription system, human or automatic.
The result is still worth having. A rough transcript makes hours of archive footage searchable in a way the video never was, and finding the moment you need takes seconds instead of an afternoon of scrubbing. Treat the text as a finding aid first and a quotable record only after you have checked it against the audio.
Frequently asked questions
My AVI will not play on my computer. Can you still read it?
Often yes. Playback failures usually mean your media player lacks the right codec rather than the file being damaged, and our processing pipeline recognises a much wider range than a typical desktop player.
Should I convert the AVI to MP4 first?
There is no need. Depending on the tool, converting may re-encode the audio and lose detail, and it can never add any. Upload the original and let us take the sound directly from it.
The AVI has two audio tracks. Which one do you use?
The first track in the file. If your recording put different speakers or a translation on separate tracks, export the one you want as its own file so there is no ambiguity about what gets transcribed.