Share this- Part 1.What is FLV?
- Part 2.How to download flash videos from video sites for free?
- Part 3.How to play FLV files on Mac OS X?
- Part 4.How to Convert YouTube FLV Videos to iPad, iPad 2, iPod, iPod touch, iPhone on Mac OS X?
What is FLV?
Flash Video (FLV) is the name of a file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player. The most recent public release of Flash Player supports H.264 video and HE-AAC audio. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. Notable websites of the Flash Video format include YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! Video, Reuters.com, hulu.com, etc. How to download flash videos from video sites for free?
You can download the flash video (FLV files, the default video format that most video social sites are using) from online video host into your local hard disk. With some tricks, it’s now very easy to download the videos hosted and shared on online video sites such as YouTube and Google Video. You can follow the guide:How to play FLV files on Mac OS X (Mac OS X Lion included)?
FLV is not natively supported by Mac apps like QuickTime, iMovie etc. nor Apple devices like iPhone, iPad. So if you want to play FLV (Flash Video) files on Mac OS, you then need to use a player that can handle FLV files. Here are 2 recommendations (both of them are Free):- VLC Media Player is a free, cross-platform media player that supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs. It can handle FLV, WMV and VOB files to name a few.
- Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular media formats including FLV, MKV, AVI, DivX, 3ivX, FLV1, FSV1, Flash ADPCM and many more.
How to Convert YouTube FLV Videos to iPad, iPod touch, iPhone 4 on Mac OS X?
As we know, most of the video files downloaded from these online video hosting sites are in the format of FLV. For whatever reasons, such as prefer to view and store the videos in mpeg format, or want to play the offline video clips in portable player such as PSP, iPod, and iPhone, or simply don’t like to view it with FLV Player, then there is a need to convert the FLV video format to another format such as .AVI, .MOV, .WMV and .MPG. So, how can you convert your FLV video to all popular video formats easily and quickly? Please follow this step-by-step guide: Step 1. Download and install FLV Video Converter on Mac, then run it We recommend you Video Converter for Mac, which can convert all video files (including FLV format) from one format to another perfectly. Compared with other FLV converters, this Mac FLV Converter provides you with better output quality, more advanced functions and higher conversion speed, it also has more friendly and easy-to-use interface. There are even some detailed guide about these Mac conversions, you can check them out here: convert FLV to MPG on Mac, convert FLV to MP4 on Mac, convert FLV to AVI on Mac, convert FLV to WMV on Mac, convert FLV to 3GP on Mac, convert FLV to M4V on Mac etc. Note: iSkysoft Video Converter for Mac can also convert among all sorts of popular video and audio formats including MPEG1, MPEG2, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, MOV, AVI, M2TS, MPEG TS/TP (for HD Video), M4V, etc. Step 2. Load the FLV files you want to convert
Drag & drop FLV files to the program. Or go to “File” menu, choose “Add Video” to locate the FLV files you want to add. For you convenience, Batch conversion is supported by this FLV video converter Mac, so you can load several FLV files at one time. Step 3. Choose the output format for iPad, iPod, iPhone, PSP etc. After you added FLV files, you can select an output format for each video file and specify a directory on your computer to save the output files. You can just select the format according to the device name.For example, you can select ‘iPod’ when you want to convert FLV to iPod touch on Mac.
Or you can select ‘iPhone 3GS Video MPEG-4(*.MP4)’ when you want to convert FLV files to iPhone 3GS on Mac. The default setting works well. To lean more about the FLV to PSP Mac conversion,FLV to PS3 Mac conversion, you can click the link to read more. Tip: If you only need a FLV to iPad Mac conversion/FLV to iPod Mac conversion/FLV to iPhone Mac conversion, you can click the links to get some step by step guides in specialty. Step 4. Start the FLV to iPad/iPod/iPhone conversion Click the “Convert” button to start the FLV to iPad/iPod/iPhone 4 video conversion. 
