Does anyone know how to or a program that will convert .DAT files (like the ones on VCDs) to .AVI files?

No way. Dat are text.

A .dat is a text file but a VCD is an AVI file encoded using specific parameters and at a specific resolution, so that it will play in a set top box. You can use virtualdub to re-encode the VCD however, if thats what you want to do. www.doom9.org

VCD format employs a .dat extension however these file are simply how it converts a .dat file to picture is another story. To view them on your computer first make sure you have the the various avi codecs and you can get them by downloading and running DivX..do a google and you'll get it. Copy the .dat files to your hard drive. Go to tools and folder options to enable you to view all filename extensions. Go to your file and rename it with an .avi extension. Simple as pie. VCD's are encoded to an old standard developed to home player logic for earlier models hence they used a .dat file but this is a .avi file as we know it today. AVI is a very old format and compression ratio's are rather huge by todays standards like mpg and wmv and the likes but the quality is great on .avi files. You can go to www.doom9.org and down load a converter to make the file smaller however the lesser the size is reflected in the picture quality. Regards Soldano Work Is The Rent We Pay For The Space We Occupy On Earth AMD Athlon XP2500 Codegen 550W P/S Gigabyte GA-8KNXP 1 Gig ECC-DDRAM 2x200gig SATA Seagate HDD Pioneer A06 DVD Burner