finding sensible defaults for ffmpeg (aiming for cross-compatibility)

README

So, provided you have some image files of form "_tmp0000.png", you can run generate_movies.sh to create a "result.txt" file which contains a list of the files successfully generated.

Additional columns are used to indicate testing status: '1' (failed), '0' (successful), '0.5' (works, but serious artifacts), '?' (couldn't try).

The script will provide the first column by testing if the movie plays using ffplay. Note, no movie gets displayed to the screen, so this is fairly quick. I have included my "result.txt" file which contains testing results for additional platforms. Platforms are:
* LibreOffice Impress on Linux
* QuickTime on Mac
* MS Office PowerPoint on Mac
* OpenOffice Impress on Mac

generate_movies.sh

#!/bin/bash

for codec in mpeg4 libtheora mpeg1video mpeg2video msmpeg4 msmpeg4v2 wmv1 wmv2
do
        for format in mp4 avi mov webm m4v flv asf
        do
                ffmpeg -i _tmp%04d.png -vcodec $codec -r 5.0 -f $format \
                       -y "test_ffmpeg_"$codec"_anim."$format 2> /dev/null > /dev/null
                if [ $? -eq 0 ]
                then
                        ffmpeg -i "test_ffmpeg_"$codec"_anim."$format \
                               -f null - 2> /dev/null
                        echo "test_ffmpeg_"$codec"_anim."$format $? >> result.txt
                fi
        done
done

weathergod_results.txt

test_ffmpeg_mpeg4_anim.mp4 0 1 0 0 0
test_ffmpeg_mpeg4_anim.avi 0 1 1 1 1
test_ffmpeg_mpeg4_anim.mov 0 1 0 0 0
test_ffmpeg_mpeg4_anim.m4v 0 ? 1 1 ?
test_ffmpeg_mpeg4_anim.flv 1 ? 1 1 ?
test_ffmpeg_mpeg4_anim.asf 0 ? 0 ? ?
test_ffmpeg_libtheora_anim.avi 0 0 1 1 1
test_ffmpeg_libtheora_anim.mov 0 1 1 1 1
test_ffmpeg_libtheora_anim.m4v 1 ? 1 1 ?
test_ffmpeg_libtheora_anim.asf 0 ? 1 ? ?
test_ffmpeg_msmpeg4_anim.avi 0 1 0.5 0.5 1
test_ffmpeg_msmpeg4_anim.mov 0 1 1 1 1
test_ffmpeg_msmpeg4_anim.m4v 1 ? 1 1 ?
test_ffmpeg_msmpeg4_anim.asf 0 ? 0.5 ? ?
test_ffmpeg_msmpeg4v2_anim.avi 0 1 0 0 1
test_ffmpeg_msmpeg4v2_anim.mov 0 1 1 1 1
test_ffmpeg_msmpeg4v2_anim.m4v 1 ? 1 1 ?
test_ffmpeg_msmpeg4v2_anim.asf 0 ? 0 ? ?
test_ffmpeg_wmv1_anim.avi 0 1 0 0 1
test_ffmpeg_wmv1_anim.mov 0 1 1 1 1
test_ffmpeg_wmv1_anim.m4v 1 ? 1 1 ?
test_ffmpeg_wmv1_anim.asf 0 ? 0 ? ?
test_ffmpeg_wmv2_anim.avi 0 1 0 0 1
test_ffmpeg_wmv2_anim.mov 0 1 1 1 1
test_ffmpeg_wmv2_anim.m4v 1 ? 1 1 ?
test_ffmpeg_wmv2_anim.asf 0 ? 0 ? ?