This is encouraging: In the following rant, other people (the whole of Ubuntu in this case) are taking the heat for FFmpeg’s shortcomings: 5 Things I hate about Ubuntu. Item #3: “It has defective or near unusable packages (ie ffmpeg, scribus)”
In this situation, the complaint refers to the fact that FFmpeg’s native, default codebase does not presently include the ability to encode AMR or MP3. The Guru is reportedly working on a native MP3 encoder. Native AMR… that certainly should be in the codebase by now, though it probably isn’t.
No it isn’t (AMR) and that’s my fault. Though there is a promising development in this area regarding a contact I’ve made. If there’s anyone out there willing to aid me understand how the AMR codec works, I have the time to write it, but without knowing what I’m writing, it’s very difficult. It is my view that the specification for narrow band is awful, at least for the decoder. It’s possible this view is because I’m not used to reading codec specifications but you’re all welcome to take a look (series 26 from 3gpp.org) and offer aids to my understanding by writing up a better specification on the Multimedia Wiki. Pleeease. :)