AMV is a proprietary video file format, produced for MP4 players, as well as S1 MP3 players with video playback. There are now two different MTV formats: the older one for the Actions chip, and a newer one for ALi’s M5661 chip. This format for ALi one was ALIAVI.

The container is a modified version of AVI. The video format is a variant of Motion JPEG, with fixed rather than variable quantisation tables. The audio format is a variant of IMA ADPCM, where the first 8 bytes of each frame are origin (16 bits), index (16 bits) and number of encoded 16-bit samples (32 bits); all known AMV files run sound at 22050 samples/second.

Low decoder overhead is paramount as the S1 MP3 players have very low-end processors (a Z80 variant). Video compression ratio is low — around 4 pixels/byte, compared with over 10 pixels/byte for MPEG-2 — though as the files are of low resolution (96×96 up to 208×176) and frame rate (10, 12, or 16 frame/s), file sizes are small in bytes per second. With a resolution of 128×96 pixels and a framerate of 12 frame/s, a 30-minute video will be compressed into 80 MB.

Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.

Video technology was first developed for cathode ray tube (CRT) television systems, but several new technologies for video display devices have since been invented. Charles Ginsburg led an Ampex research team developing the first practical video tape recorder (VTR). In 1951 the first video tape recorder captured live images from television cameras by converting the camera's electrical impulses and saving the information onto magnetic video tape.

Video recorders sold for $50,000 in 1956, and videotape cost $300 per one-hour reel. However, prices steadily dropped over the years; in 1971, Sony began selling videocassette recorder (VCR) tapes to the public. After the invention of the DVD in 1997 and Blu-ray Disc in 2006, sales of videotape and tape equipment plummeted.

Later advances in computer technology allowed computers to capture, store, edit and transmit video clips.