How to convert .flv (flash video) to .avi or .mpg

tetsuwan · Member Joined: 17 Nov 2003

oh, addendum to above, FLV metadata finds the codec to be "4." I understand that to be a vp6, could it be sorenson?

Freakin frustratin

Scorpion King · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2003 Location: United States

if it's FLV4 then my FLV4 conversion method from the previous page should work. Try it and let us know. ok
http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1618736&highlight=#1618736

Good luck.

OSU · Member Joined: 04 Feb 2003 Location: USA

Scorpion King, thank for the excellent guide. I was using a process similar to yours (w/o the filters added). The only issues (and it's kinda major) is that the A/V sync on my completed .avi is off big time. When I dropped the clip on FLVExtract v1.2.0 I get a summary of the conversion... Average Frame Rate: 26.9906 (48880/1811), Estimated True Frame Rate: 29.99880 (754500, 25151). Anyway to correct this so that everything is in synch?

Scorpion King · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2003 Location: United States

coondog1234 · Member Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Location: United States

Bad news everyone today my Riva FLV encoder died, all i get when i run it is this error thats written in a foreign language maybe ill grab a screenshot of it and post it on here. OK i took a screen grab of the error and here it is its attached to this post

coondog1234 · Member Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Location: United States

Can someone tell me what this error means, im thinking maybe it was a piece of the program that my virus scanner flagged as bad but why would it do that, the only word that i understand out of this error (I speak english) are programm, Virus, and Reinstallieren <-- im thinking this means reinstall the program so i tried that and it didnt work, well im now using super (c) and i can convert most FLV files Directly into iPod videos, havent tested them on the ipod they play in quicktime, they are just a couple of sesame street clips from youtube and a tv commercial, oh and does anyone know what codecs that myspace uses b/c i cant convert their FLVs with riva or super(c). i think tom patched that to allow saving but not converting, God i hate DRM

Scorpion King · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2003 Location: United States

celtic_druid · Member Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Location: Australia

Sounds like you don't have Gabest's flvsplitter installed (my build has a built in FLV4 decoder). VDub can't directly open any flv's since it contains no flv parser.

Scorpion King · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2003 Location: United States

Ai Haibara · Posted: Dec 16, 2006 01:38

Just as a semi-related side-note: on the SUPER forums, word is that the next version will be released around Christmas, and reportedly handle all types of FLVs that can be found on the net.

(from http://www.w3exchange.com/p1196-2006-12-05-154542.html#p1196 )

suirauqa · Member Joined: 16 Dec 2006 Location: United States

@Scorpion King, you are amazing. Your guide and patient explanations are very detailed and helpful. I even have and use some of the tools you mentioned including VirtualDubMod. However, my problem is twofold. (1) I am looking for an easy fix for converting FLV files to AVI or MPEG or even WMV, the operating word being 'easy' at this moment - sorry

don't be exasperated (2) GSpot says that my FLV file is FLV1 (grabbed off YouTube using the VideoDownloader extension in FF2.0); I believe your guide pertains to FLV4s. Would you have any ideas? They are always welcome.

@Baldrick, before you remind me

yes, I have used the latest available version of Super (c). However, just as someone mentioned early in this thread, I am getting an audio video mismatch (out of sync). I confess, I was playing Super by the ear - setting the video and audio specifications as best as I could. I hope you can offer me an insight into the default settings. I was going for the AVI container with either DivX or XVid codec and MP3 audio.

I understand from the Super website FAQ that this may be because of a mismatch between the settings of an input FLV and output AVI (or whatever). Does anyone know how to get those settings from an FLV file?

Peace.

suirauqa

EDIT: I forgot to add the I tried someone else's method of changing the .flv extension to .avi, but it did not work (I did not think it would, but just gave it a try all the same

). I also tried VLC Media player's transcoding wizard, trying AVI one time and WMV at another, but ended up with much larger file size (which I don't mind) and pixellated video (which I do).
_________________
Transcoding newbie... sigh!

Scorpion King · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2003 Location: United States

Converting FLV to AVI or MPG or whatever is easy regardless if it's FLV1 or FLV4 or FLV?????, pretty much the only difference is which decoder to enable in ffdshow.

FLV1 needs the FLV1 decoder enabled in ffdshow in both configuration dialogs because:

1= so it will play on your computer and work in AVICodec
and
2 = so VirtualDubMod can work with the file type.

Here is a ffdshow configuration example: Set FLV1 = libracodec in both dialogs.

If you have FLV4 files then you need to enable ffdshow's decoder for file type VP6F. Enable it by setting VP6F = libavcodec. You must also do both of ffdshow's configuration dialog boxes just like above so you can work the file type in VirtualDubMod.

That is the first step in the process. You should now be able to play your FLV1 files in Media Player Classic.

To get the file into VirtualDubMod you must first demultiplex it. This means to separate the video and audio into separate files (streams). For this process I recommend you use FLVExtract v1.2.0. Download and install this version because it will also work FLV4 files.

FLVExtract is a simple one box program. You open Windows Explorer to the folder containing your FLV file then run FLVExtract. FLVExtract stays on top of explorer. You simply drag and drop your FLV file onto FLVExtract and it will automatically demultiplex it to the same folder. The video will have a file extension of AVI, but it will still be an FLV. The audio will have an MP3 extention (most likely).

FLVExtract in the foreground with Windows Explorer in the background: I drag&drop sample.flv onto FLVExtract and it created the streams and the text file. The video stream has the extention .avi, and the audio extention is MP3. The text file is .txt.

Now that I have my decoder enabled in ffdshow and my FLV file demultiplexed I am now ready for VirtualDubMOD.

Run VirtualDubMod and load in your demuxed FLV video stream (in my case it's sample.avi). Next click "Streams" then "Stream List" then when the box opens click "ADD" and select your demuxed MP3 audio. It will look like this:

Next comes a simple conversion to HuffYuv AVI. Huffy is looseless so you loose no quality in the conversion. The filesize will be large but after this step any of your encoding/editing program will be able to open and work the file type. VirtualDubMOD is a cool program because you can add filters at this point and clean up the video. You can also filter the audio to some extent in the program. You can resize your FLV also in this step, or you can just do the simple conversion to Huffyuv then do all that other editing later.

Click Video - Compression - Select Huffyuv from the list of available compressors (if it is not there you need to download and install it), then click OK.

I also recommend you convert the audio if you are planning on later going to DVD with this file. So once again click "Streams" then "Stream List" then Right-Click your audio stream and select "Full Processing Mode" (because VDM was going to simply stream copy - not convert - your audio), then right click the stream again and choose Conversion. Now choose 48000Hz, 16bit, High Quality, and Stereo. Click OK. Again Right Click your stream and choose compression then choose PCM, then OK the streams list box.

To summarize. We set ffdshow to decode our FLV. We demuxed our FLV using FLVExtract. We have loaded our demuxed video and audio streams into VirtualDubMod. We set the video to convert to Huffyuv avi codec. We set the audio to convert to DVD specs and to convert it to PCM (no compression wav).

Now export your huffyuv avi by clicking File - Save AVI. Give it a new name and go. You should now have a new file that will play in any of your programs.

If you decided to filter and/or resize, etc then you can close-reopen VDM (to clean your changes back to default) and load in your new huffyuv file. I have tried a few different filter arrangements and types but these seemed to work ok. Heres a photo of my filter list. If you don't have them a quick google search will find them easily.

Good luck and hope this helps.

a few other links you might want to look at.
http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1599408&highlight=#1599408
http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1618736&highlight=#1618736
http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1611052&highlight=#1611052

Things that can make this process a little harder are:

VBR (variable bitrate) mp3 audio
This requires full processing mode to pcm in VDM. (just like above). Using my above steps should work ok. As my sample.flv file had VBR mp3 audio and it converted in sync. When you add the vbr mp3 audio VDM will pop-up a dialog box stating such, and since we are going to avi in this conversion selecting "Yes" to this box should be fine.

Non-standard framerates
If your FLV file has a non-standard framerate (other than 29.970 NTSC) and you are planning on going to DVD with the file then you need to add a framerate conversion step to the above. in VDM click Video - Framerate - Framerate conversion - Convert to FPS: and enter 29.970 (for us in the USA). Then OK the box. With the other settings above this should work ok. As my sample.flv file used 30.1fps and it converted fine. I have also did 14.9fps in this fashion (also with VBR audio) and they played in sync and were fine.

Since I am no master of FLV conversion (and don't claim to be) this process may not work on all your FLV files. It has been working fine on the FLV files I have converted so far. lol

qiaoxinger · **Banned** Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Location: China qiaoxinger

SPAM

misaki712 · Member Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Location: Philippines

Can Super convert FLV files that are greater than 1:00?

fltk · **Banned** Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Location: Denmark

MrLeone · Member Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Location: Europe

Hi guys! Im new here and have tried to search for my problem, but can`t find anything about it..

Im using this program http://www.alloksoft.com/images/wmv-main.gif to encode my movie files before I use change them to .flv files.. BUT the only problem I get is that the sound is slower then the pics.. So when someone talk on the movie, I see the pics before I hear the sound...

I have tried and tried, but cant fint where the problem is..
It must be the encoder http://www.alloksoft.com/images/wmv-main.gif program because its ok before but when its done it has change..

Any suggestions??

Thanks in advance!

sharewareguide · **Banned** Joined: 30 Oct 2006 Location: China

I like to SPAM

You are in breach of the forum rules and are being issued with a formal warning.
/ Moderator Baldrick

gat_ · Member Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Location: France

Why to download softwares ?

Just enter the YouTube URL and choose between downloading it in FLV or AVI file format.

http://virginie.mathey.co.uk/index.php?Seulement-lui_tools

Gaetan

Biuk88 · Member Joined: 05 Mar 2007 Location: Belgrade, Serbia

Play the file with FLV Player then convert it with RAD Video Tools. Both of these tools are free. RAD Video Tools can convert almost all video files and you can change codecs, quality etc.
Tool links:
http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm
http://www.download.com/FLV-Player/3000-2139_4-10467081.html

mhorse · **Banned** Joined: 12 Jul 2006 Location: Hong Kong

a very popular thread.

milkgal · Member Joined: 06 Apr 2007 Location: United States

Hello,
I am having trouble with video/audio sync when converting a FLV file to AVI (or MPG). I've tried both Total Video Converter and SUPER and always get the video about 15-20 seconds ahead of the audio.

I've tried to match the fps from the input file to the output file and have tried lots of different combos on SUPER...

I would really appreciate any advice that you are willing to offer!

Thank you

ahlm77 · Member Joined: 12 Apr 2007 Location: United States

Is there any simpler way to convert FLV to WMV?
I am having a problem when trying to convert some files using SUPER (version 22). It has perfect audio/video sync, but the output file always stops 2 seconds before it finished encoding. Any ideas how to fix it?
I'd appreciate some suggestions

MrLeone · Member Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Location: Europe

http://www.zzztech.com/flv-to-avi-converter/

the-unknown · Member Joined: 29 May 2007 Location: United Kingdom

ok i converted a file and it works on vlc media player
but when i try to import it into movie maker to edit, it says this:
"could not be imported. The required codec was not downloaded automatically because the Download codecs automatically check box is not selected in the Options dialog box."

i dont know what this means
can anyone help??