Best way setup my video collection?

[mikehende]

Hey guys, I am now going into videos for my family's personal entertainment and would appreciate advice on everything involved please. For now I will be showing videos on a 23" widescreen monitor, later on I may get a projector so whatever I setup I will need to account for both options.

First issue, I have had a lot of videos stored away which was recorded on .flv format and I am now acquiring more videos on mp4 format, what would be best here, to convert the flv's to mp4? If not, best advice please?

[Baldrick]

I wouldn't convert if your player supports flv. You will lose quality by reconverting and you might get sync issues with flv with variable framerate.

You might be able to remux to mp4(without reconverting) with mp4box ( mymp4boxgui ) or ffmpeg( winff frontend) but it may cause sync issues also.

[mikehende]

One problem I am seeing with either the flv's or mp4's is that they aren't showing in fullscreen as the attached screenshot shows, any way to get them to show in fullscreen or would I need to resort back to one of those older square shaped monitors instead of the newer widescreens?

[newpball]

One problem I am seeing with either the flv's or mp4's is that they aren't showing in fullscreen as the attached screenshot shows, any way to get them to show in fullscreen or would I need to resort back to one of those older square shaped monitors instead of the newer widescreens?

On most video players you just double click on the video for full screen.

And obviously, but I am sure you understand that, a full screen video always will show black bars left and right on a widescreen.

[mikehende]

No, I wasn't aware of double clicking for full screen or that the black bars are normal, I don't have any or much experience with videos. Ok so now I know what the deal is, I am trying out these videos in MPC, is there any better video viewing software I can use to play both flv and mp4 files or would MPC be just as good as any others?

Also, to battle the changes in volume in each video, my guess would be to use a handheld remote? If no other option, anything you guys can recommend please?