Using ffmpeg to make a movie from png files

This is the wrong syntax for passing multiple images as input to ffmpeg. Please have a look at the FFmpeg Wiki guide on creating a video slideshow and the image2 demuxer options.

You need to tell it to use three digits for the sequence numbers, and start at 84, i.e.

ffmpeg -start_number 84 -i island_sizes-CSH\(II\)-%03d.png output.mpg

Some further tips:

• MPEG-1 as a video codec is less than optimal and gives you bad quality at high file sizes. Unless you want compatibility for old devices or computers (or Windows XP without any codecs), scratch that and use an MPEG-4 Part 10 encoder (H.264), such as libx264:

  ffmpeg -i … -c:v libx264 out.mp4
  

  For a tutorial on x264 options (how to change the quality etc.) check the x264 encoding guide.

• PNG files use an RGB pixel format, which is not supported in normal video codecs. With MPEG-1 it does not matter, but with MPEG-4 codecs it would, since ffmpeg would automatically convert the pixel format to non-subsampled YUV. In that case you need to translate this to chroma-subsampled formats such as YUV 4:2:0, otherwise your video might not play in most applications:

  ffmpeg -i … -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p out.mp4