Some useful knowledge of flash FLV, SWF

What’s the difference between FLV and SWF?

FLV stands for “Flash Video”. It is a format designed for web video playback that offers high rates of compression and produces high quality video. FLV is becoming more and more popular on the web since it can easily be embedded in a webpage and is supported by the main operating systems via the Adobe Flash Player and web-browser plug in. At present, FLV is the file format widely used by some famous websites, such as YouTube, Google Video, MySpace, etc.
More specifically, SWF is a proprietary file format for multimedia and especially for vector graphics. It can contain animations or applets of varying degrees of interactivity and function in order to be small enough for publication on the Web. Therefore, SWF is currently the dominant format for displaying animated vector graphics on the web which is very popular and be commonly used. What's more, SWF is sometimes used for creating animated display graphics and menus for DVD movies, and television commercials.

Why FLV becomes more and more popular on the web?

• FLV file sizes are small compared to others (almost 60% less). Thus they take up less space on a server and can be easily downloaded.
• Flash files can be easily viewed by over 90% of web visitors (mostly due to the Flash player browser plug in) , FLV file plays directly in more browsers than Windows Media, Real Player or QuickTime.
• U can easily convert various video to flash format with some video to FLV converters.
• FLV players can be completely customized for logos, brandings and embedded links matching your website or product.
• FLV players can play files from a database like My SQL or MS SQL Server, and are easy to manage.
• Flash Communications servers are easier to maintain than others, and are less prone to security threats.
• Flash can be used for a multitude of uses, for example movies, online presentations, banner ads, internet animations, etc.

How to download flash video files from web?

FLV files are unallowed to download basically, if you really want to download them, it’s also simple, here I will introduce a couple of methods:

First of all, you may use Flash stream recorder like Replay Media Catcher or freeware Ask & Record Toolbar.

Secondly, you may use web-browser plug-ins like Fast Video Download.

Thirdly, HTTP streams are cached so you may get the from the cache folder of your web-browser. If you use Internet Explorer (haven't switched to Firefox yet???) go to C:\Documents and Settings\your user name\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files and you will find the FLV video you just watched.

Finally HTTP .FLV streams can sometimes be downloaded using expert websites like

http://www.youtubecatcher.com/
http://vixy.net/
http://keepvid.com/
http://www.savevideodownload.com/download.php

How to convert video to FLV, SWF ?

FLV or SWF files embedded on a website will be viewable with a browser plug in Flash player, so as long as people browse web-pages, they can enjoy your video. If you have some wonderful videos in various formats and you want to share them on the video sharing websites or personal blog, you need to convert video to FLV. There are many video to flash converters on the net, I recommend you to use WM Converter and Replay Converter. These are really amazing products!