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2 GB AVI limit

Most AVI files in use today, and the programs which use AVI files, are limited to files of 2GB in size. The 2GB AVI file limit applies to AVI 1.0 format files (the most common AVI format). It occurs because the file format uses 32 bit integers to store offsets within the file and this limits the file to about 2 gigabytes. To overcome this problem, the AVI 2.0 format was created which uses 64 bit integer offsets. AVI 2.0 files can therefore be virtually unlimited in size, there are however two points to bear in mind when using AVI 2.0 format files:

• Not all editing software supports AVI 2.0 files. 
• There is a 4Gb limit on all files with the FAT32 file system on Windows 95 and Windows 98. So unless you are using NTFS on Windows NT or Windows 2000, you are limited to 4Gb files anyway.

So some advice would be to stick to using AVI 1.0 files and capture in sections shorter than 2GB and only use AVI 2.0 if:

• You absolutely have to capture more than 2GB in one continuous section, and
• You have an editing program which supports the AVI 2.0 standard (such as Pure Motion's EditStudio).