How to choose a right player for playing FLV-files?

FLV stands for "Flash Live Video", it is a container file format used to deliver video over the Internet. Such video hosting services as YouTube, Google Video, Reuters.com and others use FLV. There are two different video file formats known as Flash Video: FLV and F4V. The audio and video data within FLV files are encoded in the same way as they are in SWF files. The newest F4V file format is based on the ISO base media file format. FLV was originally developed by Macromedia.

FLV-file is a bit stream, which is a variant of video standard H.263. But this format is more complicated, and that can create some difficulties in watching on older platforms.

The audio in FLV files is encoded in PCM, ADPCM, or MP3 format. In other words, if you have a video file in MPG or AVI format, you can convert it to FLV through an FLV converter.

How to Open an FLV File:

The easiest way to open an FLV file is to double-click on it and let your PC decide which default application should open the file. If no program opens the FLV file then you probably don't have an application installed that can view and/or edit FLV files.

How to Convert an FLV File:

There are two main ways to convert an FLV file to another file type: Open the FLV file in its default program and choose to save the open file as another file format. Use a File Conversion Online Service or Software Program to convert the FLV file to another file format.

The first option involving opening the FLV file in its native program is preferable because it's both easier and will probably result in a more accurate file conversion. Of course if you don't have a program that opens FLV files, a third-party file conversion tool (the second option) could be very useful. Important: You cannot usually change a file extension (like the FLV file extension) to one that your computer recognizes and expect the newly renamed file to be usable. An actual file format conversion using one of the methods described above must take place in most cases.

FLV-players:

FLV format is designed for streaming video, but you can use it for local storage and playback. Popular players that support FLV-format:

• Media Player Classic
• VLC flash player
• GOM Player
• Light Alloy
• MPlayer
• The KMPlayer
• VLC media player
• Winamp
• SWF & FLV Player
• Crystal Player
• CuePlayer
• JetAudio

Since FLV is a media container, but not the format, some players may not correctly play video or audio stream in the absence of the codec used in creation of the file.

Supported media types in FLV file format:

Video: On2 VP6, Sorenson Spark (Sorenson H.263), Screen video, H.264 Audio: MP3, ADPCM, Linear PCM, Nellymoser, Speex, AAC, G.711 (reserved for internal use)

Supported media types in F4V file format: Video: H.264

Images (still frame of video data): GIF, PNG, JPEG Audio: AAC, HE-AAC, MP3