Finally had some time to crack this problem, and downloaded imageMagick version 6.0.3 beta, which did what I wanted straight away, while the old 5.5.7 didn't.

Still, I can't grab any old frame from an .avi as I can with an .mpg. I have to settle for the first frame from my .avi

But, as I do with my jpgs, I simply drop the avi into a folder called 200 or 300 and that number denotes the size of the thumbnail. I do have to watch the file size, as some of these .avi are quite big, 4meg plus, for two reasons: to ensure that the whole file gets up loaded, and my bandwidth — don't want search engines or other bots coming and sucking up all these large files, like, everyday... I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

There's a few more refinements to do, like illustrate the .avi's file size, and write something on the jpg'd thumbnail to say it's an avi file...

This isn't a terribly good example. It's shot in low light, so it's a bit orange, and stuttery seeming frame rate.

Very sweet! Esme presents, "When Santa got Stuck up the Chimney." A fire side carol in the pub at Leighton.