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Someone at Reddit inspires me to try this command:

ffmpeg -r 25 -i input.mp4 -c:v amv -vf scale=160:128 output.amv

Sadly, that produces an error:

Unable to find a suitable output format for 'output.amv'
output.amv: Invalid argument

But if I change the command to produce output.avi rather than output.amv, and then rename the finished output.avi to be output.amv, I get a file that plays on the computer. In that case, MediaInfo reports that output.amv is in AVI format, and its video portion is in AMVF format. An attempt to play output.amv produces "Format error" on the portable device that requires AMV files, unfortunately.

Someone says the explanation is, "FFmpeg supports the amv codec but for some reason not the amv container." If that is true, is there a way to use ffmpeg to convert various (e.g., AVI, MP4) videos to AMV videos that will play on the portable device? Or if not, is there an alternative that is known to produce working AMVs? I'm using Windows 10 but could probably handle a fairly simple Linux solution.

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  • No support in ffmpeg for AMV container. You could encode AMV and save to AVI using current ffmpeg and then remux using the binary tools linked at amv-codec-tools
    – Gyan
    Commented Apr 17, 2019 at 10:59
  • Feel free to add a feature request to the FFmpeg bug tracker.
    – llogan
    Commented Apr 17, 2019 at 16:43
  • Tried adding a feature request; can't get past the antispam to register: what I enter for "project name" fails. ... Saw amv-codec-tools, and sites referencing it, but I would need more of a tutorial: e.g., no idea how to "fix those bugs." But thanks anyway.
    – Ray Woodcock
    Commented Apr 17, 2019 at 16:54

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There is a ticket for adding the AMV encoding support to ffmpeg that has recently been closed - https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/747. As far as I could check, there has been no release since the code went in though.

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  • 2
    You can get a build from the git master branch and it will have AMV encoding support, or wait 1-7 months for FFmpeg 4.4.
    – llogan
    Commented Dec 26, 2020 at 1:02

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