A friend who lives on Elcho Island sent me an email asking "I am wondering do you know if it is possible to change a FLV to MP3 or MOV file?"

The answer is Yes, but you probably want to convert it to an mp4 file. A free way to do that is to download VLAN which is an open source video player and converter.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Here is a link to a small camtasia movie on how to convert FLV files to mp4 or mov format... Remember that the mov format (quicktime) and mp4 format is simply a "wrapper" that encases the h.264 encoded video file so it can be played by the player.

http://ourcourses.ntschools.net/file.php/321/vlc/UsingVLC.html

You can of course also save as an mp3, but you will just get a sound file with no video.

Why might you want to do this? Although it appears that Apple are relaxing their stance on playing FLV video on the ipad or iphone, there still is a need to convert videos to a format playable on the Apple platform until that is enacted.

Which one is better? Both are good... and once Apple permit the playing of flash video we will be able to use both without problem. Industry is suggesting though that the mp4 format, which itself was under a potential licensing cloud is now the codec of choice for encoding videos.

 

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