i've got a program i downloaded from Kazaa that will convert avi files to different formats. it also has the "crack" to turn it into the full version instead of the trial version. it's 3.15MB, i could try to e-mail it to you if you want it. PM me or you can search kazaa for it.

it is SLOW, but doesn't bog my system down much at all. it does work though, as i've used it to convert movies so i can burn them to CD. you can convert to mpeg-1, mpeg2 and to divx, and if the file is a bad avi, you can re-convert it to avi and then move on from there.