Every time I try to play AVI files from my flip video recorder in QuickTime Pro (version 7.3), it crashes. Any idea how to troubleshoot?

Although the QuickTime player can play .avi files, sometimes the encoder that makes the .avi is a different ‘version’ (i.e. newer, or a proprietary implementation by the manufacturer of that camera), designed to work with the ‘guts’ of that specific camera. Eventually, the software engineers at Apple will get their hands on that camera, and figure out/update QT to incorporate that encoder (aka “codec”); my new HD tapeless video camera has the same problem, only with H.264 media files.

In the meantime, you could try opening the .avi with another ‘universal’ media player, such as VLC Player

.avi is a “container” format, meaning that it’s not actually itself a video format, it can contain a variety of different formats. Some of those formats will work, others won’t.

If all you want to do is play the video, I’d second the suggestion for VLC, it will play nearly anything.

If you want to edit the video, say in iMovie 08, you’ll need to convert it to something that Apple likes more, like mp4 or m4v. To do that, I suggest ffmpegX

If so, you may try this method to solve can’t play AVI in QuickTime at http://www.idealshare.net/itunes-quicktime/quicktime-avi-solution.html