How to convert .FLV(Flash) to .WMV, .AVI or any other format?
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In my last post on ‘How to Download Video, not just from YouTube?, I mentioned that the downloaded file will be in .flv format (Flash). I also gave links to some of the free FLV players. But, if you want to use that downloaded video in another or friends computer which doesn’t have FLV player then every time you have to install FLV player in all computers.
But it’s possible to convert FLV files to WMV, AVI or any other format you prefer and it’s easier than you think. The best part is you might already have that software installed in your computer.
So, How to convert FLV to WMV, AVI or any other format?
VLC player is one of the software which is widely used and which plays any format of audio or video (including .flv). The less known fact is that it also helps to convert audio and video file formats. Follow these steps to convert .flv to .wmv, .avi or any other format.
Note: If you don’t have VLC player yet, then you can download from VideoLan. It’s an open source!
Step 1: Load the .flv file into VLC player and press Stop. (If you are using large file then it may take some time to load, so wait till the whole file is loaded and then press stop. Otherwise you may not be able to transcode the full file)
Step 2: Go to File -> Wizard. It will give you a pop-up ‘Streaming/Transcoding Wizard‘.
Step 3: Select Transcode/Save to file and Click Next.
Step 4: Select Exisiting Playlist Item and the file you have just loaded will be listed there.
Step 5: Highlight the .flv file and click Next.
Step 6: In the next screen, Select Transcode Video and from the drop down box choose WMV3 (this has highest quality, though the output of the file may differ as per the original .flv file). If you are having problem with WMV3, try using WMV2.
Step 7: Select Transcode Audio and from the drop down box choose MP3 (for the quality to be higher, leave it at the default bitrate of 192) and click Next.
Step 8: choose ‘ASF‘ as the ‘Encapsulation Format‘ and click Next.
Step 9: You will be asked to select the file to save to, click ‘Choose‘ and browse to the folder where you want your new file to be saved.
Step 10: !!!Important!!! Type in the file name in the ‘File’ field with the extension of .WMV (example, lytebyte.wmv)
Step 11: Click Finish and wait for couple of seconds and the new file is ready.
Step 12: Use the new .WMV file in any player!
Earlier Update: In case if you are not able to transcode the full file, it may be because the file was not fully loaded before it was transcoded. Read Step 1 or this comment for more.
Or if you are facing some green garbage video for first few seconds, try using wmv2 instead of wmv3. Thanks Shawanta for this tip and MoYaKa for confirming it.
Update [Jan 11, 2009] Also, some have reported some changes in the new version of VLC. See Paul’s comments on how to convert using new VLC versions. Thanks Paul and Karl for confirming it.
Earlier Note: VLC has not yet released the new version for Vista but it works for most of the cases except for some rare extension types. Find out ‘How to make VLC player work in Vista?‘
If you are reading this post then you are probably downloading videos from internet. Use this new easiest method to download online videos using real player, read more on “How to Download Youtube and Other Online Videos using Real Player?“
when i transcode the video and play it with Windows media player it sounds fine but the video is Full sized hight but only like 10 pixels wide, but if i play it with VLC its fine. Anyone had this problem it doesnt really make sense…
Hey this is a great tip.
Theres only one problem bugging me..
I can only get one, if i do Audio and Video, i get Audio only, if i do Video only i get video no Audio..
Any Suggestions?
Thanks Steve
This is so helpful! Thanks so much!
Thanks much for all the effort! I, too have the same green wash the first few seconds when I play the converted YouTube video into WMP or VLC player. Any chance of a fix?
WOW! Holy Cow! Do you absolutely ROCK, or what?!?
You are the Light at the end of a rather long, winding, irritating tunnel!
I’ve tried program after program (free) trying to find ways of doing ALL OF THESE VERY THINGS, and had no success at finding ways to do ANY of them without having a nasty watermark smack-dab in the center of the screen, or borking my computer, or requiring literacy in Computer Chinese to figure out.
This info here is SUCH A PHENOMENAL HELP!!! Thank You!
(Having the means to simply convert FLVs and MKVs to a burnable format seems simple and “no big deal”, but I’ve spent a RIDICULOUS amount of time and energy trying to do it– program after program, and it’s actually quite difficult. I believe THESE tutorial provide The Answer, PLUS the ability to have far MORE tasty vids!)
hi mr byte, i’ve succeeeded in converting the flv file to wmv. it plays fine on my computer, buti can’t play it in my mp3 player even though it’s able to play wmv file. a box comes up saying that it has one or more properties outside device limits. do you have any idea what it means? and what does it not being presented in the device user interface means too? hope you answer my question soon! thanks:)
Wow this is amazing! i managed to convert all my flv to wmv and manage to convert them to mp3 using another software!
Thank You!!
I am so greatful! But the problem is that for the first few seconds of the video clip, everything turns green. Help!!!
Much appreciated!
This technique works flawlessly.
Well … ALMOST flawlessly. I, too, am experiencing approximately 9 seconds of “green awfulness” at the beginning of certain FLVs, once they’ve been converted to WMV.
I’ve even managed to work out the command line equivalent of this process, for direct use in Total Commander ( %P%N –sout=#transcode{vcodec=WMV3,vb=1024,scale=1,acodec=mp3,ab=192,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=asf,url=%T%N.wmv}} ) but this “green problem” does manifest occasionally, but only occasionally.
I see MANY people reporting this problem, myself included, but I see nobody reporting a solution to it.
DOES ANYONE KNOW OF ONE? The very latest version, 0.86f is completely unchanged in this respect.
What a pity. This was almost a perfect solution, but 9 seconds of green abortion is a deal-breaker, I’m afraid.
Please, anyone? Is there a solution? It looks like a deep, dark bug, deep within VLC somewhere.
If anyone has a solution, please post it here and put all of us out of our misery!
it works great. For those of you to lazy to read, thats why your having problems. Mr Byte posted the same answer many times and yet you refuse to follow instructions
Actually,Muqmuud, don’t be so quick to cast judgment on the dozens of people who have posted here… It may be YOU who are “too lazy to read”, because several people have reiterated the steps they took (as per the instructions) and still have no success… So being “too lazy to read” might be YOUR issue, but it isn’t everyone else’s.
Anyhow, I am grateful for VLC and the ability to convert files (hypothetically), as posting a couple of weeks ago reflects.
However, I too have these same issues everyone else does. Yes, everything is “ticked” as it should be, and all instructions have been followed TO THE LETTER… about 30 times or so, using FLVs from various sources. Some have a green stain at the beginning, one or two had the thinly compressed (and unwatchable) video with good audio, and most just give audio without video.
***SOLUTIONS***: Best I found is by selecting the DivX extention instead of WMV3. WMV3 is alot muddier in quality, but the DivX extension is very effective at producing a file with very good audio and video quality (use the free and awesome DivX Player and several other media players to playback videos with the DivX codec).
A SECONDARY SOLUTION takes more work to get inferior results than using DivX, BUT you can use VLC to convert:
1. An MP3 audio only file by ticking only “Transcode Audio”.
2. A video track (WMV3) by ticking ONLY “Transcode Video”.
Then, convert the MP3 into a WMA file (there’s lots of free converters out there for this) and then use Windows Movie Maker (or a similar program) to add the WMA audio track to the perfectly good (but silent) “video only” track that was made.
It’s extra stuff to do, and it compromises quality a bit more, but it works.
ANOTHER CONSIDERATION: WMV is alot more common than DivX is, it’s true…
But honestly, if the WMV3 setting is the BEST for quality, then I’d say none of this is really worth the time and energy I and others have invested…
Transcoding the video to DivX using VLC keeps the quality quite excellent by comparison.
Now… To find a good conversion program for DivX to WMV.
Hmmmm…
all im saying is i followed directions and it worked for me. so it should have worked for you.
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Obviously, there is a bug! I am trying to convert flv file into wmv. I checked both video and audio transcode checkboxes and chose video codec wmv3, audio codec mp3, left bit rate values by default (1024 for video and 192 for audio). After all, i got wmv file only with video and no audio!
Vlc is truly an amazing free and eficient program
I just wanted to say this was the easiest step by step instructional guide i’ve ever used and the program is so fast. You would not believe all the converters I’ve been downloading and just have to go to the next one because the trials run out. I had no idea and I thank you SO MUCH!!! =)
My file works fine on Vlc but when I try to listen to it on a diffrent prgram it doesn’t work. It turns into a jumbled short squeeky version. I would like to know what to do.
Okay, I went to go convert it, and it only converted 5 to 15 seconds of the .flv videos I went to convert. It also messed up the video’s visual drastically, putting a bunch of green or fuzz, or absolutely nothing. I have no idea what to do. It never works for me.
This is awesome. Thanks.
Before now, I was using WinFF but I was having problems editing my videos in WMM… The video and audio will stop playing for no reason but the slider will keep moving. Thanks to VLC and this amazing “how-to” I’ve finally solved my problem.
I’ve bookmarked this site for sure! Thumbs up!
Typically, I use gnu4ffmpeg to convert to avi. It is only about 300kb large, and can also convert to dvd format.
thnx dude itz grt
I am using an IMAC. I follow directions except I don’t have the wmv 3 option. So I use wmv 2 option. Get the green at the beginning and no audio. Would like to use this program for downloaded videos but so far haven’t seen a solution to these problems.
Hey I used this to convert a youtube video, but it won’t let me play it once it was converted, it said that it was not a valid win32 application. I put the converted video onto powerpoint, and it played, but for the first 10 seconds there were large green pixels covering the screen. The video is onle 45 seconds long so the first 10 matter. how do I fix both of these problems?
thank you so much. it was a success
First of all Many thanks to Mr. Byte for starting this.
I was getting the same problems as others in that the outputted file was only showing several seconds of the video only.
However looking through the comments I noticed SHAWNTA’s tip to use WMV2 instead of WM3 which worked fine for me; so thank you Shawnta too.
@MoYaKa, Thanks for confirming that tip. It’ll be helpful to others who are having the same problem.
it’s great!
tanks a lot
Well I have tried this several times and in the past it always worked fine. Now when I try it I can only get audio and no video. have tried different combinations of all settings and can either get audio and no video or video and no audio.
great
I’m afraid changing from WMV3 to WMV2 does NOT fix the green screen problem at the beginning of files. This problem also occurs when trying to convert the .flv file to other formats as well, is there an alternative fix?
Real player works to download the video off of youtube or any site that has embedded video playing on it – if the download button pops up and you try to download and it works, then this technique works to convert the video from flash to another format.
I found an easier way to convert the file from flash to DVD directly without using the VLC player to convert – without losing video or audio on the video clip.
Use real player to download the video. Then I use AVS video converter which I purchased from AVS media tools. This program allows a person to convert one file format into another format.
Using AVS video converter, you open the folder and pick the clip you want to convert, pick the folder that you want the new formatted clip to goto – pick the quality of the video after especially with the DVD format, and convert to DVD or mp4 or AVI – depends on what format you want to convert it to. Once done, I use nero or DVD shrink to combine the video clips onto a single DVD that I can play in most DVD players.
This works – I used it a couple of days ago. Depending on the original clip – some may not work in AVS converter – but that was because the original clip was not in the greatest quality to begin with but this method works most of the time.
AVS converter is free to try but the free version puts a water mark in the video after it is converted but I bought the actual program and it was the best investment I purchased and it now works with converting video off of youtube or any other site that has embedded video on it.
update to my last post.
If you are going to convert clips, ONLY do one clip at a time. If you try to do more than one the audio and video can become out of sync and you will have to do them over again.
It may clutter up the hard drive with so many different folders but it saves time later if the audio/video are not in sync and you have to do it again.
Once you have all the clips converted, use nero or DVD shrink to compile onto a single DVD and once finished, just delete all the folders that you no longer need.
update to my last posts. Some flash videos you may not be able to convert using the method I used but for most of them, this method should work.
I tried to download a couple of videos from the Red vs blue website but when I opened the converter program, it would shut itself down.
I tried other videos from this site as well and they worked when I converted them.
This method works for most of the videos I downloaded and have converted to a DVD format.
have been trying to successfully do this for quite some time now, thanks a lot for your help.
Excellent info!!! Thanks a ton….its really helpful
I also had the ‘audio / no video problem. I tried to find a solution for 2 hours, without succes. To quote W.C. Fields:
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.
Apparently the problem is caused by ( i quote again) : a not supported combination of parameters or by a not supported video codec.
So my quest continued, and what do you know. There’s actually a (free !) program called ‘YouTube Downloader’ which solves all our problems (no offense mr. Byte)
http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/
If you can’t directly convert video’s from certain sites such as Break.com, all you have to do is to download them to your computer, and thén convert them to wmv.files.
It worked for me, so i hope i helped a few of you people out there.
grtz, Peter, Netherlands.
Reference to my other posts.
The realplayer/AVS converter method works pretty good but there might be a problem with audio/video syncing.
Depending on length, quality of the video and the way that the video was uploaded to whatever site you are downloading the video from, the audio/video may become out of sync.
I had this happen with a video clip. I downloaded 2 versions of the same clip.
When I converted the clip over, 1 clip had the sound and video out of sync about 4min in when the clip broke between scenes.
The second clip – exactly the same video but from a different person seemed to be in sync for the whole video.
Check them out once you convert them just to see there is a problem with the sync.
If you can find a good quality video to begin with helps as well.
Thank you so very much for the instructions.
I followed them directly, but the whole 5 second movie ended up green. I tried using the soultions posted but it still came out the same result.
Cgause – Did you follow the VCL player method because I never used that method and most (about 95% of the videos I downloaded came out fine).
There were a couple of videos where the audio and video had a syncing problem but that was due to the quality of the video and if the video had been edited in some way.
I bought AVS media tools which included the video converter so the program is mine to use.
Download using real player then convert using a video converter program – AVS converter can convert most video formats into other formats – then use nero or shrink to compile the DVD files (if you convert into DVD), then burn to a disk.
thanks so much for all your help!
Thanks lot!! your a life saver!!! the instructions work. though i was kinda impatient and didn’t wait for the full video to load
so im trying again like u suggested by waiting after u press finish
re: no audio:
set the bitrate to 128 kbps
I have successfully used this to download Youtube videos and convert them to WMV, is it possible to convert them to a format i can watch on my mobile phone, i have a Nokia N95, i transferred the wmv file to my memory card but the phone does not seem to recognise the file – any help would be appreciated
Thanks
does anyome know and can tell me how to convert a .wmv into a .mkv thx very much
After completing conversion, the new video only plays audio. No picture.
–FOR EVERYONE WHO ONLY GETS A FEW SECONDS OF WMV FILE–
I was trying to convert and 19 minute flv file to a 19 minute wmv file but, as many others have experienced, only got a few seconds of wmv file.
Why?
When you are waiting for the “streaming/transcoding wizard” to do it’s thing (after clicking finish), that process is saved in the playlist, so at any time you can “play” it again and the process will be repeated. After it is finished it will just sit there, stopped. The problem is, many of you are pressing “play” after it has stopped and starting the process again, thinking that you are now playing the wmv file. When no video shows up you realise and open the wmv file from where you saved it. This stops the currently playing “streaming/transcoding wizard” only a few seconds after you started it. It then overwrites the old wmv file it created earlier and replaces it with the new wmv which, because the “streaming/transcoding wizard” only went for a few seconds, is very short.
SOLUTION
When the “streaming/transcoding wizard” has finished doing it’s thing, close down the VLC media player without touching anything else. Now open it again and load your wmv file. The file will now be complete!
Hope this helps, it did for me!
Did a little research on why some of these flv’s would transcode OK and why some would not.
Apparently, VLC is able to do both sound and video from files encoded using the Sorenson codec (based on Flash 6). However if the file is encoded with On2 VP6 encoding (based on Flash 8 ), it will bomb, and you will get only audio, as we’ve all discovered. Leaving out an audio codec will yield the video only, as again we’ve all discovered. However, the files can be checked to see if they can be successfully transcoded into WMVs.
In Ubuntu Linux, the encoding can be checked by right-clicking the file in question and clicking Properties; there’s an audio-video tab in there and it will tell you which codecs have been used.
In Windows, download Gspot codec information appliance and check the file using it.
So far, I have been able to encode files that use the Sorenson codec successfully into working WMVs using VLC, though I get two different aberrations sometimes. Often, a few seconds of the video will vanish, or I get the green screen at the beginning.
I do not have solutions for getting rid of these, as I’m still a bit new to the video world, nor do I have an answer for the unencodeable codec On2 VP6. If I find some, I’ll be sure to post again. But at least you don’t have to guess which files will work now.
Oh, and be careful when downloading decoders. I downloaded a freeware decoder, only to find out it wouldn’t work unless it was registered and they sent you back a key. Of course, once you’ve filled in all your personal info (I gave semi-bogus info), they’ll tell you they’re no longer accepting registration of the free product and want you to purchase the non-free one, for something like $40. That product got uninstalled ASAP.
Some further info from VLC’s website:
http://wiki.videolan.org/Fixing_.flv_to_.avi_with_Ffmpeg
I have tried this and it seems to work on those stubborn On2 VP6 coded files. It is a command line utility, which is not for everyone. Unfortunately, the video quality isn’t as good as I’d like it, but since I haven’t played around with the command line switches (it’s all in the documentation with ffmpeg) I can’t say it’s impossible to get a good video. I saved mine in 3 different formats and was unable to tell much of a difference– mpg, avi, or wmv. I also tried converting an avi file that I converted with ffmpeg to a wmv3 with VLC. Made a larger file, but could see no difference. I also didn’t see evidence of the dreaded green screen at the beginning either, but I haven’t done extensive work with this utility on various files yet, as I’m at my day job.
But– it does work and if some blocky pixelation isn’t a serious problem in your downloaded files, then ffmpeg will work. It can be run with a VBS script in Windows (shown on the above link), but be sure to know what you’re doing; I don’t, so one at a time in a command window is fine for me.
Thnaks very much for this amazing tip. Keep it up!!
thank you very much…….great work man…………keep it up……