The greatest limiting factor is the XP O/S when using Vista or W7 there isn't an issue. I know the limitations of FAT32 and that the limit increases using NTFS but only in a 64bit O/S.

Video really isn't my bag, though I'm very comfortable in audio.

The following mess is headers from two different AVI files. The first one is from WIC, the second is from a digital camera. The headers are in Hexadecimal converted to ASCII and they contain handy info such as number of frames, data streams, width and height etc.

The reason I'm looking at these is you can tell whether an AVI file is type-1 or type-2 from the "vids" and "auds" tags. A type-1 AVI only has one stream called "vids". A type-2 AVI has two streams called "vids" and "auds".

WIC AVI Header:

RIFFH.ð.AVI LIST
À...hdrlavih8...
,....`.........
C.............P.
................
........LISTt...
strlstrh8...vids <-- vids tag here
................
............C...
..P.............
....strf(...(...
.......... .....
..P.............
....JUNK

Digital Camera AVI Header:

RIFFr2Æ.AVI LIST
F...hdrlavih8...
,..hž&.........
~............±..
€...à...........
........LISTt...
strlstrh8...vids <-- vids tag here
mjpg............
,..@B......~...
"2...'..........
€.à.strf(...(...
€...à.......MJPG
................
....LIST\...strl
strh8...auds.... <-- auds tag here
................
.±......Ð`...±..
.'..............
strf........D¬..
.±......IDIT....
................
..........LIST..
..INFOISFT....Ca
nonMVI03..JUNK

The word JUNK indicates the end of the header.

So bummer! It seems since the WIC AVI header only has one stream it is type-1 therefore limited to 4GB.

Anyone else interested in AVI file format go here.