Why iPhone Videos Fail as Telegram Avatars and How to Fix It
iPhones have recorded video in HEVC (H.265) by default since iOS 11, but Telegram's video avatar feature requires H.264, causing uploads to silently fail with no error message. The platform drops any video that does not meet five specific criteria: H.264 in yuv420p format, a square frame up to 800x800, a duration of 10 seconds or less, no audio track, and a file size under roughly 2MB. Most iPhone clips fail at least three of these checks simultaneously, leaving users confused as their old avatar remains unchanged. A developer traced the issue using ffprobe, which revealed the incompatible codec, and documented a single ffmpeg command that re-encodes the video to Telegram's exact specifications. The fix involves a center-square crop, resolution scaling, codec conversion, audio stream removal, and a faststart flag to ensure client compatibility.
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