AVB can mean several different things depending on where it appears, which is why confusion is common; when you’re dealing with an .AVB file extension, it usually refers to an Avid Bin from Avid Media Composer that stores organizational metadata like clips, subclips, sequences, and markers while the actual audio/video lives separately in places such as `Avid MediaFiles\MXF`, and because it’s an Avid-specific format, you open it only inside Avid, with offline media typically pointing to relinking needs rather than bin corruption, whereas outside Avid, “AVB” can also mean unrelated networking or Android-security terms that don’t function as openable files.

In pro A/V and certain automotive Ethernet environments, AVB refers to Audio Video Bridging, an IEEE framework ensuring synchronized, bandwidth-reserved media over Ethernet rather than defining a file format; in Android firmware work, AVB instead means Android Verified Boot, which validates partitions during startup using elements like `vbmeta`, and older software may also assign `.avb` to Microsoft Comic Chat Character files when not tied to Avid.

How to open an AVB file varies with the type of AVB involved, but in the usual Avid Bin (.avb) scenario, you open it only through Avid Media Composer by loading the project and then opening the bin, which shows your clips and sequences; Media Offline errors typically point to missing or displaced `Avid MediaFiles\MXF` rather than a bad bin, so reconnecting or relinking fixes it, and if the bin is unreadable, Avid Attic provides automatic backups you can restore.

If your “AVB” is Audio Video Bridging from the networking world, you won’t have any AVB file to open, because AVB concerns timing/bandwidth on Ethernet rather than documents; if it’s Android Verified Boot, you interact with firmware and verification metadata (e.g., `vbmeta`) via Android platform tools, and if your `.avb` is the outdated Microsoft Comic Chat Character type, you’ll need the original software or an emulator since modern systems lack support.

An Avid Bin (`.avb`) doesn’t include the underlying media, holding information about clips, sequences, timecode usage, and markers, while your actual audio/video files live elsewhere under directories such as `Avid MediaFiles\MXF\…`; copying just the `.avb` moves the edit instructions but not the footage, so Avid will load the bin but show Media Offline until the media is accessible or relinked, and this design keeps bins compact for sharing and backup—so an `.avb` cannot function as a playable file on its own.