What are FLV files?

What are FLV files?

An FLV file is a binary file format that delivers “bitmapped” video, limited to one video and one audio stream per file. It is mainly used over the Internet to one or another versions of the Flash Player. FLV content may also be embedded in SWF files (which are also a type of Flash file which can wrap video streams, audio, or games) submitted by ActionScript external references.

How to play FLV files?

In order to be able to play FLV files, you need a multimedia player which can support Flash Videos. Since FLV is an open format (meaning that it is publicly documented how it encodes and decodes files) any developers who wish to make their own video players which support the FLV file extension. The most popular online video players like YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! Video, and many news providers make use of FLV players on their websites to provide video content. This is because “Bitmapped” video in FLV files may be compressed in various ways and the video quality in these encodings is expected to range from good to very good.

Flash Video is viewable on most operating systems, via the widely available Adobe Flash Player and web browser plugin, or one of the best freely available third-party program called VLC media player. You can download it here for FREE!