Is there any media player that plays FLV or SWF files form Youtube?

[peggypwr1]

Hi I think its great that these new media players play HD, WMV, etc but any on the market that can play the videos off youtube on my flat screen w/o converting them?

[zoobie]

try VLC

[Ai Haibara]

The OP is asking about stand-alone media players like the WDTV, I believe. As I don't have any of them, though, I can't comment on whether any of them are capable of playing FLVs.

[yoda313]

I think I remember jagabo saying one of the newer wdtv models does play some flvs. I don't remember which types and I don't remember which model.

[SatStorm]

Last time I checked this (about half a year ago) there wasn't any standalone media player that could play flv files direct.

But my popcorn hour A100 can play remuxed (to mkv) flv files. Not all of them, most of them.
Remux is easy, fast and doesn't re-encode something. It might be a solution

[deadmeow]

The Asus O!Play does play flv's with no problem. It even plays the newer h264/flv's that you find on YouTube.

It is very nice to be able to play an flv without re-encoding, as you don' want to lose quality, especially in files that may be of low quality already.

[peggypwr1]

Deadmeow which model # ASUS do you have? DOes ASUS have good community support like the WDTV models??

[lordsmurf]

Try this Briteview player: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002LTRCRW?ie=UTF8&tag=thdifa-20&linkCode=as2&camp=17...SIN=B002LTRCRW

The bigger issue is On2 codecs (VP6,VP7) and Flash wrapper (Adobe).
Not open specs like MPEG-2, H.264, etc.
Licensing and available information would limit what's possible.

[deadmeow]

I have the Asus O!Play Air HDP-R3

I bought it in May, and it has been fantastic. It even plays rmvb real media files, which I find occasionally in Asian TV shows and films. It plays DVD ISO files including menus and all. You can even hook up a external usb DVD rom drive to it and use it as a glorified DVD player if you wish. It also has an E-SATA port.

It has played every file I have thrown at it, and most importantly for me, it plays subtitles without a problem, including ones embedded in mkv files.

Most people here seem to like Western Digital media player, which I am sure is pretty good, but the Asus seems to be the most compatible and offer the most options.

As far as the community, here is a link to the Asus O!play Air forums, which is always jumping with activity.
http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?board_id=19&model=O!Play+Air&SLanguage=en-us

I currently have a 1 TB drive hooked up to mine via e-sata, and dvd-drive via usb, and it is hooked to my old CRT television, while I wait for my new HD LCD television to arrive.

For me having something compatible with multiple formats and subtitles was a must, as I watch mostly non-English television and films (Asian) most of the time.

[jman98]

deadmeow - Thanks for letting us know about your experiences with this player. Many of us, including myself, have WDTV players so it's always good to know what else is out there.

I like Asian cinema myself and every now and then I watch Japanese TV shows I find with fan subs. You've probably already seen this stuff a long time ago, but I particularly liked Galileo, The Quiz Show and Mr. Brain. Check those out if you haven't seen them yet.

[garryward]

My sumvison Cyclone does

[SatStorm]

Interesting! I didn't know about flv and Asus O!Play.
Nice info!

[jagabo]

Yes, the WDTV Live plays FLV files downloaded from Youtube. At least those that contain AVC video. It doesn't play older FLV files with the h.263 codec. I don't know about VP6 and VP7.

[peggypwr1]

Yeah thanks dead meow! I'm sorry for the lost of your cat

[mike20021969]

Avstodvd can help you converter SWF to DVD video which is playable on DVD playerrr,you can find it at

Dragging up an ancient thread to promote some crappy piece of software?