How to convert flash .flv files to Mpeg .mp4 format - Thing #21

This falls into one of those technical domains that nobody else reading this blog will be interested in. But i am posting it because the article title will show up in Google and someone else having the same technical question may benefit.

One of our bilingual people wanted to show a YouTube video about Somali culture at our recent parent meeting. YouTube is blocked by the district firewall to reduce traffic volume, which is a frequent problem because there are so many valuable videos on the site. It is possible to go around the firewall with the MPS Roadrunner connection but who knows where that is at, certainly not in the classroom needed.

Most YouTube videos are Adobe Flash Video .flv files, a proprietary format that requires a license to do much with. As a general rule VLC, a freeware media player, will play Anything. And it is supposed to play Flash video files but would only pickup the mp3 soundtrack, no video. I learned from Todd Pierson at a district meeting that there was at least one shareware capture utility for YouTube. I downloaded it a couple of others and compared their ability to convert. YouTube Video Grabber is also a shareware capture utility but like VLC would not convert the video, only sound. Visual Hub, an excellent shareware conversion utility, same story, no video. I expected that i could drop the file on any updated Flash enabled browser, like Safari or Firefox but they acted totally ignorant. I think Adobe tries to keep changing proprietary formats to make them dysfunctional with older software as a sales strategy.

TubeSock was simple and efficient to save the file in .mp4 format, as well as several other formats. Mp4, i think, is a highly compressed format favored by video media players, like video ipods. Not great but serviceable. Our bilingual AE put the video on a big screen and let it play while the Somali families ate.

All of this software is findable at Versiontracker.com, the premeire site to find any software to do anything, if you know the right search terms. I should add that this is all Macintosh software and i am not aware of what is available for Windows.