AVIs and video editing

[The Pezman]

So I've downloaded a video file in AVI format. I've tried to open it in iMovie, Final Cut, Photoshop, et al., but all I get is a black screen or incompatibility notice every time. I've also tried converting it to Matroska and MPEG-4, but same result. What can I do?

[Moseph]

See if you can get VirtualDub (http://www.virtualdub.org/) to open it.

[Millipede]

Do you know any good tutorials for Virtual Dub?
I tried using it and no idea what was going on.

[Sweendrix]

Try using Adobe Encore...maybe a trial version...I dunno.

[The Coop]

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/avidivx.html

Try any of the stuff on there yet?

[Nutritious]

You may also need a codec to decode the video before you can edit it (like divx). Might want to see if you can figure out what was used to encode the original avi.