What AVI does not do, however, is define how the video will be captured, compressed or played back. This means that as new technology for video is introduced, i.e. a new codec, it can be incorporated into Video for Windows. AVI files may be played using the Media Player supplied with Windows 3.1x or Windows 95 or from within applications. Quicktime provides a basic set of software schemes that meet a range of compression needs for still images, animation, video and sound. Many video capture cards support Indeo compression.
Decompression is in software only.
However, if the video requires extensive editing, real-time compression should not be used. Indeo is a proprietary blend of colour sampling, vector quantization and run-length encoding. Having said that, reducing to 256 colours helps reduce file size. Needless to say, to reap the benefits, Indeo video should be played on 16 bit or higher displays. Two versions of the codec in use are Indeo 3.2 and Indeo Interactive.