[FFmpeg-user] MPEG-2 video, m2v1 (?) vs mp2v

[Jason C]

I'm using ffmpeg on Windows, the latest build available as of the time of
this writing:

  ffmpeg version N-78067-g9079e99 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg
developers

My goal is to create an MPEG-2 video (container format doesn't matter).
When I use "-vcodec mpeg2video" the output has the fourcc "m2v1". This
output is unplayable in VLC, Windows Media Player (with K-Lite codec pack),
mplayer, and the QuickTime player. Additionally, "m2v1" doesn't seem to
exist in any fourcc databases. It seems to be incorrect.

What I *have *found is that the fourcc for MPEG-2 video seems to actually
be "mp2v", but I can't find another MPEG-2 video codec listed with
"-codecs".

So my main question is: How do I encode an MPEG-2 video with ffmpeg, with
fourcc code "mp2v", or at least to something that is playable by any common
media players?

And my second question is: What is "m2v1"? It seems to be rarely used,
possibly nonexistent, and possibly unique to ffmpeg (although I did read
some forum posts that look like rare combinations of older Mac software
used to generate it).

Actually I have a third question: I also have a similar problem with
MPEG-1, where ffmpeg uses "m1v1" which is unplayable by VLC at least, but
I'm not actually sure what the fourcc is supposed to be.

Thanks,
Jason