How to convert video to .flv?

[wldncrzy14]

Hi, I'm trying to convert a variety of videos, mostly .avi files, into .flv format with a video bitrate of ~390 and audio of 64, so they can be compatible with Livestream. I've tried about 5 programs so far and all I get is really blocky output, or it takes forever. One program, Ultra Video Splitter, gives me decent quality output, but it's a crapshoot. I can only select video quality in terms of 'normal', 'good', 'low', and the bitrate for each varies wildly. Often, I'm stuck with something 290kbps simply because 401kbps is too much and there's no in-between option.

Do any of you know of a good program that would meet my needs?
Much thanks!

[Baldrick]

Flash Video Encoder or On2 Flix.

Or if they support mp4 with h264 video use a x264 encoder gui like handbrake, xvid4psp, ffcoder, etc.

[wldncrzy14]

I think On2 Flix is the one I tried that took a really long time to convert something, even on single pass.

[wldncrzy14]

Yeah, looks like 45 minutes to convert a 10 minute file with On2
And I don't think mp4 will work. The guidelines it tells me are .flv, video bitrate below 400, audio bitrate of 64, frame size of 480x360.

[ricardouk]

try mencoder:

mencoder input.avi -o men.flv -af resample=22050:0:0 -sws 9 -vf scale=480:-3,expand=480:360 -of lavf -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=flv:vbitrate=400:trell:v4mv:mv0:mbd=2:cbp:aic:cmp=3:subcmp=3 -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=64:mode=3

or if you prefer ffmpeg use avanti

[pepegot1]

Try "Any Video Converter." The settings you can select are: 384 bit/rate, 64 for audio.

[wldncrzy14]

Any Video Encoder seems to work great. Fast conversion without crazy blocky output. Mencoder probably would have worked well too, since I believe Ultra Video Splitter uses it.

[ricardouk]

Any video converter is a Gui for mencoder, after hundreds of conversions and dozens gui's tested i think of the free solutions mencoder produces better quality when converting to flv, if you pook around you can find the settings used by any video converter in the data aplicattion folder in Windows, i compared that scrit with the one posted above and the one posted gives better results...not much...but you can notice it.

with the script above you dont need to worry about setting fps, resolution, crop, add black bars if needed...it will do everything automatically... and since all you need is a folder with mencoder and a bat file you can use it from an usb pen in virtually any pc without installing anything...can any video converter do that?

Simple and effective


About the crazy blocks...you're using a 480x360 resolution....if you have a monitor using a resolution of 1800x1440 for example and you watch the video in full screen mode you will of course see crazy blocks...

you can always try to trick the limits you have by using flv as a container but using h264 to convert the vídeo.

Try avanti and do the following:

1- setup avanti with ffmpeg and mp4box

2- open avanti and click on profiles and select h264 high quality 2 pass profile

3- select aac lib as audio codec, 48k bitrate and 22050 as samplerate

4- select video bitrate

4- in the P button select mov atoom to begining

5- select flv as container

Does it work for you?