Brief Introduction
FLV and F4V
Although FLV and F4V are 2 different video file formats, but both of them are also known as Flash Video. They are container file formats that deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) via Internet. FLV can be played with Adobe
Flash Player version 6 and newer, while F4V file format is starting with Flash Player 9.
SWF
SWF stands for Small Web Format. It contains video and vector based animations and sound. It can also delivery video over the web just like FLV and F4V. The audio and video data within FLV files are encoded in the same manner as they are within SWF files. Therefore, it is no surprised that Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files.
All of them are owned by Adobe now.
Part 1What You Need to Know about FLV, F4V, SWF
FLV, F4V and SWF are video formats available on the Internet but they are not the same. All of them can be viewed on websites by using the Flash plug in though not all of them can be viewed with every version of Flash plug in. More details of them are showed as below.
FLV vs. F4V
FLV | F4V | |
Basic Info | Stands for Flash Video. | A recent type of FLV file |
Supported Formats | AAC and H.264 | AAC and H.264 |
Compatibility | All of the Adobe Flash Player and browsers with Adobe Flash Player Plugins | Do not work on most of the Adobe Flash Player Plugins. Only supported by Flash Player 9 and newer ones. |
Codec | Sorenson Spark, screen video, ADPCM, nellymoser, linear PCM and VP6 video compression |
FLV is more functional than F4V in many aspects. To be more specific, FLV is capable of adding and downloading videos to the websites as well as generating an HTML web page, while F4V can't do neither of them.
FLV vs. SWF
FLV | SWF | |
Internet media type | video/x-flv, video/mp4, audio/mp4 | application/vnd.adobe.flash-movie |
Type of format | Media container | Vector graphic animation |
Developed by | Adobe Systems (originally developed by Macromedia) | FutureWave Software, later taken over by Macromedia and Adobe Systems |
Content | Audio, video, text, data | Shockwave Flash, later called Macromedia Shockwave Flash then Adobe Flash. |
Function | Store and deliver synchronized audio and video streams over the Internet | Designed for efficient delivery over the web |
Part 2How to Convert Any Video to FLV
With small file size and good quality, FLV format is one of the most widely used formats to display videos on most of the common internet browser, like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and so on. In this case, if you need to upload videos to a web page, you might need to convert videos to FLV.
In order to help you to convert any videos to FLV, I would like to recommend this software – Video Converter Ultimate. It is a software with powerful converting function that enables you to convert any video format like MP4, AVI, WMV, MOV, MKV, etc. to FLV.
It also comes with a built-in video editor, you can trim, crop, rotate the videos before conversion. Now let’s download the free trial version below and start creating your own FLV videos.
In order to help you to convert any videos to FLV, I would like to recommend this software – Video Converter Ultimate. It is a software with powerful converting function that enables you to convert any video format like MP4, AVI, WMV, MOV, MKV, etc. to FLV.
DownloadDownloadNow you know the basic knowledge about FLV, F4V and SWF. If you need to convert them to other formats, you can easily get it done with Video Converter Ultimate.
