Error message making video tracks

[SharpeXB]

I made a video with the in-game recording
It is an .avi file I figure should play on Windows Media Player but I get this error message.

80040218 No combination of filters could be found to render the stream.

Anyone know what that means or why the .avi file won't play?

thanks

PS it looks like this always happens when the .avi files are too large, about 3gb
but it's hard to make any video without it getting to this size