iPhone HEVC videos fail as Telegram avatars; here's the ffmpeg fix

Short summary

iPhone videos fail as Telegram avatars because iPhones shoot HEVC video by default, but Telegram's avatar system requires H.264 codec, exactly 800x800 resolution, yuv420p pixel format, and files under 2MB. The author debugged this with 40+ test files and landed on a specific ffmpeg command that detects crop boundaries, scales to 800x800, and strips audio—running in 2-4 seconds on modest hardware. He deployed the solution as @LiveAvaBot, a public Telegram bot that re-encodes any video/GIF to avatar specs; it now serves 155 users with dozens of conversions daily.

• •iPhone HEVC videos silently fail as Telegram avatars due to codec and format mismatch
• •Solution: specific ffmpeg command to convert to H.264 800x800 yuv420p under 2MB
• •Deployed as @LiveAvaBot, a Telegram bot automating the conversion for 155+ users

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