iPad Supports .AVI M-JPEG Video

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

We didn't notice this until @pivale pointed us towards PCWorld's article, but sure enough according to Apple's iPad tech specs, the iPad does indeed support a type of .AVI video:

Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

No .AVI support of any kind is listed under iPhone or iPod touch tech specs. (Then again, none of those devices are running iPhone 3.2 like the iPad -- yet).

.AVI, the audio-video interleave is a container introduced by Microsoft. Motion JPEG is a type of .AVI compression. While .AVI in general is ubiquitous for standard definition video content on the internet, there's no indication Apple is supporting the specific XviD codec (encoding/decoding) used by those files.

In other words, and as pointed out in comments below, this will help owners of some types of video cameras watch their footage via the camera card reader accessory, it won't let anyone watch their bootleg

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.