Difference Between .asf and .avi Files

[dfourthhorseman]

When I go to dl videos, usually animes, from DC++, I usually get em in .avi format, but sometimes they also come in .asf format. What's the difference between em? I'm pretty sure .asf is older and has worse compression, quality, and error correction. Also I find a bunch of different file formats annoying, so I want to rename .asf into .avi, is that ok? Will there be compatiblity problems on other machines or software?

Thanks in advance for your help,
DFourthHorseman

[benedict]

ASF is a format for video streaming (play while downloading), and because it is meant for that it doesn't compress as well as non-streaming formats.

Changing the file extension (.ASF to .AVI) will not work. You can re-encode an ASF file to AVI using VirtualDub, but you must get VirtualDub 1.3c, as after that version VirtualDub not longer supports ASF.

[Unfortunately, I don't recall the link for that download. Perhaps someone else here can provide it?]

[dfourthhorseman]

That's okay, I don't really want to reencode it, the quality is already not that good, I think I'll just dl the .avi versions.

Thanks
DFourthHorseman

[benedict]

Always a good choice.

While you might be able to improve the quality of the ASF videos a bit by playing with some filters, why bother when you don't have to. Save that effort for those videos you can't find AVIs for.