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Encode FLV Video Files

October 10, 2008 @ 6:10am

Updated — December 2, 2008 @ 11:34pm

So you've got a custom video player for your site (maybe it's an open source thing, or SlideShowPro, or one a developer built for your needs). The problem with most of those solutions is that they require you to upload videos in the .flv format, which not every video application can just crank out. Of course, if you're only concerned with catering to those using the Flash browser plug-in's version 9 and higher, then you can serve up .mov videos in Flash, as long as they are encoded with the h.264 codec.

For those who are tempted with that option, but would like to stay compatible with as many of their site visitors as possible, read on, and you'll be crunching .flv files like it's hot.

*NOTE - There may be better free FLV encoders out there (please let us know about them!), but below is at least a couple solutions for those wishing to convert video files to .flv encoded files.

If you have Flash CS3 (for Mac or Windows)

...then you have the Flash Video Encoder application, which can be used to convert a file from .mov to .flv with the following steps;

Click the "Add..." button
Click the "Settings..." button if you want to tweak the quality of the encoding, but the default is okay.
Click the "Start Queue" button
The video is now encoding to .flv
When complete, the .flv file should have the same file name, and reside in the same location on your computer as the .mov file.

For more detailed and official information, check out the "Encoding video with Flash Video Encoder" article from Adobe's Flash Video Encoder User Guide.

If you don't have Flash CS3 (for Mac)

...then please read the following instructions;

You must first download an application that will encode .mov to .flv, and luckily there is a free one to use;
- Go to ffmpegX's download page
- ...or go to the direct link for the ffmpegX installer
Double click the ffmpegX.dmg file
Drag the ffmpegX.app file to your Applications folder
Double click the ffmpegX.app file
Go to http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/MacOS/ and find the link "mpeg2enc.intel" on the page
Right-click the "mpeg2enc.intel" link and choose "Save Linked File As..."
Choose the ffmpegX folder in Applications and click "Save"
In the pop-up window asking if you want to Save Plain Text, choose "Don't append"
Go to this web address; http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mplayerosx/ffmpegXbinaries20060307.zip
Double click the .zip file and move the files to the ffmpegX folder in Applications
Back in the ffmpegX application's window, click "Locate" for each of the three sections and choose the ffmpegX folder and locate the specified files
Click the "Install" button
In the new window, click "Open..." and locate the .mov file you want to encode
Back in the ffmpegX window, choose "FLV (Flash Video)" for the Target format's "To" field
Go to the "Video" and "Audio" tabs to tweak the quality settings as desired
- The default settings are no good, so at least change the following;
- VIDEO
- Video Bitrate = 800 kbit/s
- Video Size = Use the same dimensions as the existing Quicktime movie (This program doesn't automatically take care of this for you)
- Autosize = 1:1
- AUDIO
- Audio bitrate = 192 kbit/s
- Sampling = 44100 Hz
When finished tweaking the settings, go back to the "Summary" tab and click "Encode" in the lower right
The .flv file should now be created in the same location as the original .mov file.
- Please make sure to change the filename so that the end of the new .flv file, ".mov.ff.flv" gets replaced with ".flv"

The information above was drawn from ffmpegX's official instructions.

To play FLV files on your computer (for Mac and Windows)

...to check/view the contents of an FLV file;

Either install Wimpy Standalone FLV Player on your computer
...or install Eltima's Free Flash Player on your computer

*NOTE - .flv files will playback in those two programs, but they will not show up in the right dimensions (they'll stretch to fit the application's window) with Eltima's solution. Only Wimpy's application will show the .flv in the correct video dimenions, and it will do so automatically.