the theoretical limit on an avi version 1.0 file size is 4 gig (32 bits). however, due to a problem in the ms api (application program interface) used to create avi files, the index and several other entries become corrupt if you create an avi file larger than 2 gig. also, some players, such as the older mci control, allow you to only play back a 1 gig file.

    the following guidelines apply:

    1 if you want every application to be able to play back the file, limit the size to 1 gig.

    2 if you're only interested in media player and newer apps, limit the size to 2 gig.

    3 vidcap32 creates avi files larger than 2 gig, but the indexes are corrupt and can't be played back with any player. if vidcap32 runs out of space while capturing, the entire avi file is marked corrupt.

    4 you can use the riffwalk.exe utility in the platform sdk to verify an avi file. it echoes an error if the file is corrupt.

    the opendml committee developed a specification for avi 2.0 files. the enhancements include:

    1 unlimited file size

    2 interleaved indexes

    3 support for field indexes in addition to frame indexes

    the avi 2.0 specification was also designed to be backwards compatible. so an application which does not support avi 2.0 should still be able to play back the first 1 gig of the file.

    for avi 2.0 files:

    1 amcap creates avi 2.0 format files; vidcap does not.

    2 amcap creates avi files as large as the file system allows. if amcap runs out of space, the avi file is still good.

    3 only windows media player and other newer apps can play back the entire avi file.

    to create a file greater than 4 gig, you must use ntfs. here are the windows file system limits:

    1 fat16: file 2 gigabytes, partition 2 gigabytes

    2 fat16 (nt): file 4 gigabytes, partition 4 gigabytes

    3 fat32: file 4 gigabytes, partition 2 terabytes

    4 ntfs: file 2 terabytes, partition 16 exabytes (18.4 x 10^18 bytes)

    hardware limits:

    1 ide drive size limit: 540 megabytes

    2 eide drive size limit: 136.9 gigabytes

    3 bios boot partition size limit: 7.8 gig

    1 a fat16 partition larger than 2 gigabytes under nt is not visible to ms-dos

    2 the ntfs file size limit is actually 2^32 clusters. current industry standard hard disk sector size is 512 bytes, giving a 2 terabyte file size limit.