Flv file viewing with which player. How to open .FLV file

When faced with the question of how to open flv, you should understand the reasons for its occurrence and the principle of storing data in objects that have this extension. The development of Internet technologies and the growth in the volume of video content on the Internet have led to the need for a data format that allows the task of compactly storing data and receiving and transmitting it. This format was supposed to allow for significant compression of audio and video data; provide streaming playback and store metadata describing the technology for playback/modification.

Adobe is the developer of the format and flash technologies, did this by creating a file type - a media container, which received the extension flv. An Adobe media container consists of several objects in one file: video, sound, description of codecs, etc.

Exaggeratedly, the flv file can be described as follows: the container contains soundtrack and video sequence, and the codecs for playback are described in the container metadata area. I repeat, codecs and their type are only described, but not contained! This is due to the need to provide minimum size file and the presence of the necessary codec is required so as not to think about how to open the flv container.

Note: In my personal opinion, best collection audio and video codecs, today, are K-Lite Codec Pack (at the time of writing, there was available version 9.7 packages). The package includes all the most popular and common codecs. In addition, it contains media player Player Classic, perhaps the most acceptable option for opening flv files. Both the set of codecs and the MPC player itself are absolutely free and do not require registration to download and use.

Despite the fact that, mainly, files of this type used for online broadcasts streaming video online, it is possible to store these files locally and play them offline. Below I will talk about the flv format, how to open it for playback and edit.

The main “supplier” of streaming video on the Internet is now YouTube (video storage service) and all social networks (VKontakte, Facebook, Twitter, Odnoklassniki, etc.). All these Internet services allow you to watch videos, but do not allow you to download the flv container. How to open and how to save to HDD video clip of interest?

Everything is quite simple. Since the streaming video format involves the transfer (stream) of data for playback to the user’s side, our browser will receive and play this information. Every browser has a cache. This is the name for the area of ​​temporary storage of data without the need to re-download it from the Internet. He may be in random access memory or on your local hard drive. It is from the “cache” that we will get the video we are looking for, and everyone will choose for themselves how to open flv.

Consider, for example, the Google Chrome browser. When playing a video in the same Odnoklassniki, you can easily download it in flv format. To do this, in the list of clips on the video you are interested in, click right key mouse and select “View element code”. A service window will open at the bottom. In it we are interested in the “Networks” tab (right top part service window).

After pressing the play button, a file with an arbitrary name will appear in it and flv extension. On it, again, you need to press the right mouse button - “Save as...”. Ready! Video from social networks will be in that hard place the drive you pointed to. You can also specify a different name for it there, since the service file name may contain a meaningless set of characters.

In conclusion, it is worth adding that flv format can be easily converted to any other video format. To convert flv to avi or mp4, you can use any of the video converters, of which there are a great many on the Internet.

FLV file opens special programs. To open this format, download one of the proposed programs.

How to open FLV file

FLV (Flash Video File) is a format created for transmitting online video. The extension is used by such large video hosting sites as:

  • YouTube;
  • In contact with;
  • Google, etc.

The FLV extension significantly compresses content and belongs to the category of video formats, or media containers. The format can be opened to Windows platform, Mac OS X, Linux or Android.
The FLV format was created by the developers of Macromedia. In 2007, Adobe Systems became the owner of the patent. FLV codecs are proprietary.

Programs for opening flv extension

An FLV file can be opened with both special FLV players and universal players that support other extensions.
The most popular software for viewing Flash Video are:

  1. Windows (all versions):
  2. Linux:
    • VLC media player
    • RealPlayer Cloud
  3. Mac OS X:
    • VLC media player
    • Adobe Flash Player
    • Eltima Elmedia Player
    • RealPlayer Cloud
  4. Android:
    • BIT LABS Simple MP4 Video Player

From the moment you install the player, FLV files become associated with this player: this allows you to open the video by double-clicking.

Some players (Media Player, etc.) open FLV only after installing additional video codecs.

Conversion

Both online converters and third-party software are suitable for converting files with the FLV extension. To the most popular programs for this purpose include:

  • Freemake Video Converter:
    MP4, MP3, AVI, WMV, MKV, etc.
  • FormatFactory:
    MP3, FLAC, OGG, 3GP, MP4, AVI, etc.
  • Free FLV Converter:
    AVI, MP4, MKV, MP3, etc.
  • Any Video Converter:
    AVI, MP4, MKV, MP3, etc.
  • Free Studio Manager:
    AVIMP4, VOB, MOV, DVD, DAT, H263, etc.
  • WinX Video Converter:
    AVI, MP4, AVC, MOV, HD YouTube, etc.
  • Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate:
    MPG, MP4, MOV, AVI, etc.

Flash compatible video file exportable Flash plugin Video Exporter (included with Adobe Flash) or any other program that supports FLV files. Contains a short table of contents, alternating audio, video, and metadata packets. Audio and video data are stored in a similar format used standard files Flash (

Many people watch videos on YouTube, Rutube, MySpace and other popular video sites. Now there are many ways. But this article is not about that. Let's figure out how we can watch the downloaded video. The most common format for online videos on the Internet is flv. Standard players do not read this format and display an error message, since the flv format is not included in the standard set of video codecs. What to do?

Method No. 1. Using flv player.

To watch the video, we will use a player specially designed for viewing flv files. For example Applian FLV and Media Player.

This player is absolutely free. Plays flv and other formats. Download the player distribution from the Internet and install it on your computer ( standard installation shouldn't cause any problems). After that, just open the file we need and enjoy watching. An interesting feature This player has a slow motion function or vice versa accelerated video viewing.

You can also use any other flv player - Adobe Flash Player, FLV Player, Adobe Media Player (AMP), VideoLAN VLC media player, Media Player Classic.

Method number 2. Installation of codecs.

Let's use the K-Lite codec set Codec Pack Full. This is, in my opinion, the most complete set of audio-video codecs.

Download the distribution and begin installation. I would like to draw your attention to some aspects of installing K-Lite Codec Pack Full.

Selecting players to install codecs.

For each selected player, you need to select the video and audio formats that will be opened by the player. I advise you to install everything just in case. And of course, we pay attention to ensure that the one we need is installed in this moment flv format.

After installing the codecs, there should be no problems with playing flv files.

Method number 3. Converting flv file.

Another way to use the flv file format is to convert the file to standard formats video using special converter programs. I usually use Format Factory.

This program allows you to convert many not only video, audio, photo formats, but also other useful functions. I’ll definitely tell you about this later.

New version of WindowsPlayer 3.9
- Updated codecs
- Fixed hardware decoding with new video card drivers

October 15, 2018

Program update
- Added support for new file types (.avcs, .heifs, .heif, .avci, etc.)
- Added support for AV1 codec
- Updated codecs
- Bugs fixed

July 20, 2018

Program update
- Updated codecs
- Bugs fixed

October 30, 2017

New version of WindowsPlayer 3.6
- Now the sound on the laptop is even louder! - new algorithm increase the volume
- Codec update

December 1, 2016

New version of WindowsPlayer 3.5
- Codec update
- Fixed a crash when opening damaged files

February 4, 2016

New version of WindowsPlayer 3.2
- H.265 and VP9 decoders updates
- Fixed player crash with some versions of NVIDIA drivers

November 19, 2015

New version of WindowsPlayer 3.1.1
- Resolved conflict with some antiviruses (Error 412)

November 18, 2015

New version of WindowsPlayer 3.1
- Optimization of video codecs. Radical reduction in resource consumption on some systems.
- Optimization of memory consumption for NVIDIA video cards
- Fixes in displaying 10-bit video
- Fixed DXVA hardening on some video cards

July 2, 2015

New version of WindowsPlayer 3.0.2
- Fixed a bug that caused an error on AMD video cards.

June 1, 2015

New version of WindowsPlayer 3.0
- Added HTS-HD hardware decoder
- Optimization of WEBM and HEVC hardware decoders
- Corrected incorrect display time when playing Blu-ray streams
- Faster rewinding on files with broken indexes

February 19, 2015

WindowsPlayer Update
- Updated audio codecs Opus, ATRAC, Nellymoser and others
- Opus support for audio tracks in videos
- Optimized 4K video decoding H.265 and VP9
- Added support for HEVC Main10
- improved playlist playback

October 10, 2014

WindowsPlayer 2.9.4 update
- Fixed an annoying bug with muting sound
- Fixed incorrect work with NVIDIA and AMD video processors
- Many minor corrections based on your feedback
- Support URL types: rtspu, rtspm, rtspt and rtsph for RTSP protocol

October 8, 2014

New version of WindowsPlayer 2.9
- Playing 4K video now requires 2 times less resources!
- Removed flickering when resizing windows
- Fixed image restoration after screen Windows locks
- Support multimedia keys and Windows MCE remotes
- Fixed switching audio tracks
- Prevent pressing pause when rewinding
- Fixes and improvements in playing Internet streams
- Full support hardware acceleration WEBM format

May 29, 2014

Windows Player 2.8
- Added support for 3GA files
- The selected program language is saved
- Fixed video output when DirectX acceleration is not available
- Removed the window at startup when DirectX acceleration is not available

April 25, 2014

New version of WindowsPlayer 2.7
- Work on improving the player engine

March 11, 2014

WindowsPlayer version 2.6
- Improved startup time on Windows XP
- HQ does not turn off spontaneously
- Support for "icyx://" streams
- Audio tracks in ATRAC3+ format
- Accelerated DXVA2 decoding by Intel video cards
- Accelerated decoding high resolutions on AMD video cards
- Added support for video codec Duck TrueMotion 1/2

January 31, 2014

WindowsPlayer version 2.5
- The most correct tracking of new versions.

January 22, 2014

WindowsPlayer version 2.4
- Even more formats to play video and audio formats
- When you click on the timeline, you can see a screenshot of the current frame for quick viewing

08 November 2013

WindowsPlayer version 2.3
- Added video playback in H.265 (HEVC) format with hardware decoding support
- Added hardware decoding of VP9 video format
- Accelerated detection of streams in a video file
- Fixed DV decoding from some video cameras

06 August 2013

WindowsPlayer version 2.2
- Added Apple support intermediate codec
- Added support for DivX codec version 7
- Added support for HDV, AVCHD video formats
- Added support for M4A audio format
- Accelerated hardware decoding on AMD video cards
- Accelerated 4K video playback
- Opening a file from the previous playback position has been accelerated
- Fixed file association
- Bugs fixed

All versions of the program:
WindowsPlayer chronology

FLV format, the better to watch videos in FLV format

Videos in FLV format are best viewed in WindowsPlayer. There is virtually no load on the processor, the high performance of the program makes it possible to calmly watch movies and videos from FLV format files, while the video will be smooth and without unnecessary twitching.

Search great player to view flv format? Then pay attention to WindowsPlayer. No more codecs and installation individual programs, to play movies, use a universal modern player. Download videos with any extension and don't worry about whether you can open the file or not. Convenient program For the flv format, WindowsPlayer installs quickly and does not require any additional codecs.

How and with what to open a FLV file?


To open a video in .FLV format, you need to click on the video file right click mouse "Open with using Windows Player". During playback, you can stop the video by clicking on the "Pause" button and play it again by clicking on the "Play" button. The volume is adjusted with a special slider to the lower right corner of the program. Also, to improve the quality of the played video and display it on TV V open window Player available special buttons. After finishing watching, you can play the flv video again.

Playing FLV in WindowsPlayer Video Player


The most important thing about the FLV format

Flv format is a flash format that is used in Internet video. Videos of this format are easy to find on YouTube, rutube and other web hosting sites. This file is a bit stream and a variant of the H.263, H.264 video standard. The latter uses more technologically advanced high quality image, but is not supported on older computers.

Sound of flv files, most often translated into mp3 format, in some cases other standards are used. Such files are very easily opened by browser-based Adobe Flash Player or universal WindowsPlayer, but when launching a video directly on a computer, difficulties arise... Many users, having downloaded a file of this format, are wondering how to open the video. In fact, to open a file of this format, you only need a player with a large library of formats. Most often this problem occurs in Windows users XP, because the "seven" already has a good player installed.


So let's return to our problem. So, to open the video we need either a converter or a player. Since the conversion takes considerable time, it is more advisable to download the player. Download the free video player WindowsPlayer. After you have installed it, you will need to right-click on the desired FLV file, click "Open with...", then "Select program.." and select WindowsPlayer. If this player does not appear in the list, then click browse in the program selection menu to open, open the folder in which you installed and open the file windowsplayer.exe

History of the FLV format

Watching videos online on the Internet is no longer a problem, especially when unlimited traffic. To transmit video over the Internet, encoding has begun to be used, allowing video to be transmitted quickly, without loss of quality, with a small volume. This video format began to be called Flash video or FLV, played through Adobe Flash Player on video content sites.

For the first time, video transmission technology as quickly and efficiently as possible was used with the advent of YouTube service. When users upload videos to the site different formats- be it avi or mp4, the service automatically encodes files into the FLV format that is optimal for playback on a Flash player.

When playing a single flv file usually you have to use additional installed codecs, because standard players, such as Windows Media Player or Winamp do not play them. Therefore, if you want to watch FLV, then you should install, for example, K-Lite Codec Pack. It's best not to encode Flash videos to other formats as the quality may deteriorate.

For playing FLV video, for example, WindowsPlayer may be suitable. I downloaded one sloth video and played it using this player. The standard resolution of FLV video is 640x360 and 320x240, although there are different variants. As you can see in the screenshots, the quality is not too high, but quite visible at a resolution of 320x240. Of course, it's not HD), but you can watch it.

Video image quality FLV

The color and clarity of the image have to be sacrificed - what do you want? FLV is designed for viewing on the Internet with minimum cost loading time. The sound is usually of normal stereo quality, but it is worth noting that in FLV the audio track is reproduced well, since it is encoded in mp3.


If we compare FLV in terms of capabilities with other video formats, then of course it will be inferior to the same mp4, which reproduces HD quality. Also FLV doesn't play DVD players, that is, write to a flash drive or to a DVD for viewing on home theater- useless, and the quality is not at all for this purpose. FLV is perfect for a computer as a lightweight household format that does not take up too much space on the hard drive and allows you to watch videos of acceptable quality.

That's all! You are convinced that it is not so difficult to open this notorious flv format in the player

If you have a video that you want to post on the Internet, keep in mind that the Internet most often uses a flash format with the extension .flv.

Certainly, modern services For posting videos like YouTube, almost any videos are accepted, even HD videos up to 2 GB in size. But when uploading, your video is still converted to flv (or mp4).

That is, your video, for example, HD, will be converted to flv with some default settings, and not those specified by you. In addition, downloading such a video will require a long time, traffic and computer resources, but as a result you will still receive flv.

If you post a video on your website and not on a video hosting site, you even need the flv format.

There are many programs for converting to flv, we will look at some of them.

The first method is advanced

Let's look at coding with using Video Encoder, because it is an application of Macromedia Flash, which is the ancestor of flash movies and gives best quality.

If you have Macromedia Flash 8 installed, it includes Video Encoder. This program is designed specifically for converting to flash. following formats: avi, dv, mov, mp4, wmv, mpeg, mpg, asf.

Let's launch Macromedia Flash 8 Video Encoder . A window will open with only 5 buttons on the right:

Add... - add our video.

Duplicate - duplicate the video (useful when changing settings).

Remove - delete this video (if it is no longer needed).

Settings... - go to the settings panel.

Start Queue - start the conversion.

As you can see, everything is very simple, just let’s take a closer look at the settings of our future flash movie. Its size depends on them, and you know that for the Internet the size is preferably smaller.

But by reducing the size, we degrade the quality, so we need to find the “golden mean” - small size and decent quality.

Go to settings - Settings... You will be asked to select a ready-made profile for encoding; the default is Medium Quality - medium quality.

You can use these profiles: Low (low quality, most small size), Medium(average), High (high quality, largest size).

But there is a big disadvantage of ready-made profiles: our video will be 720x576 in size, this is too much for the Internet high resolution. We can set our own settings.

To apply your settings, click the button Show Advanced Settings and consider the proposed settings.

Video encoding(check mark) - let’s look at the proposed windows:

Video codec - On2 VP6 - do not change.

Frame rate - number of frames per second (fps) - select 10 or 12 or 15 in the tab. More frames - larger output size. Do not put more than 15. For 10 frames per second the quality is also quite decent. You can choose for yourself best option by trial method.

Key frame placement - leave Automatic.

Quality - choose Custom and install in the window that appears Max data rate number of kilobits per second.

Here is exactly the same principle - more bitrate (kbit/s) - more video And better quality. Try 32 kb/s first (it makes it possible to watch video even through dial-up modems, although they are becoming less common), if the quality is not good, increase it.

Resize video - change the video screen size (resolution). Check the box and enter your dimensions.

Make sure the checkbox is ticked Maintain aspect ratio to maintain the proportions of the video. That is, if you entered Wight(width), for example, 240 px, then Height(height) will be set automatically. The size of the screen also affects the size of the future video.

Audio encoding(check mark) - small selection:

Audio codec is offered alone and does not change.

Data rate - default 94 kbps (stereo) - this is a lot. Firstly, we choose mono, secondly 16 or 32 kbps. This also affects the output size of the video clip.

So, having tried different settings, you will choose the quality and size of your video at your discretion.

Before exiting the settings window, go back up to the window Output filename and enter the name of your flash movie.

It will be saved in the same folder where the original video file was. If you don't do this, it will be saved under the same name, but with the flv extension. Click OK.

Returning to the original window, click the button Start Queue - conversion begins. After it is completed, you can watch the resulting video in the original folder. If you are not satisfied with the quality or size, change the settings and repeat the procedure.

If you do not have Macromedia Flash 8 and want to simplify the encoding procedure, you can use special programs -