Opening AVI from Windows in Mac IMovie

When trying to drag and drop the files into IMovie, I found that they wouldn't import. I got the message 'can't open file greggy.avi. Skipping it and continuing.' and then, 'The file could not be imported (-2126)'. Why would this happen and is there any thing I can do about it?

As is frequently mentioned in this forum, AVI is not, in and of itself, a specific Audio-Video compression format. Rather it is (like MOV) simply a file container capable of contained many different combinations of audio and video compression formats. Your basic option is the download and installation of a free player codec module (like DivX v5.1.1, v5.2.1, v6; 3ivX v4.5; or Flip4Mac) or the purchase of a conversion codec (like DivX v6 or Flip4Mac). Alternatively, you can always download and install a free dedicated file converter like MPEG Streamclip which has links to the free DivX v5.1.2 and/or v5.2.1 QT codecs. (Of the two, I prefer v5.1.1 which allows conversion to/from MP3/Layer-3 AVI files in both MPEG Streamclip and QT if your are converting in both directions.)

As the previous poster said, most likely the video in your AVI file is encoded with a codec that you don't have on your Mac. If the clip came from your camera, it is probably some MPEG flavor, like MPEG-1. You can find out by looking at the "Movie Properties" dialog in the application that can play the clip on the PC. Your Mac doesn't have such MPEG codecs by default. The Quicktime MPEG Plugin ($29, requires Quicktime Pro, also $29) could work.

The easiest way to get this clip into iMovie is to go back to the PC and load the clip into Windows Movie Maker. Then export as DV-AVI file, and load that into iMovie.

Tilman