Converting video (AVI, MOV, MPG, MP4) to FLV using FFmpeg

Posted on Fri, 2008-07-18 21:30

Firstly you need to download FFmpeg from the FFmpeg website

To convert your file use the following command.

ffmpeg -i "C:\videos\videoname.mov" -ar 44100 -ab 96 -f flv "C:\videos\videoname.flv"

  • ffmpeg - runs the program
  • -i "filename.ext" - input file
  • -ar 44100 - audio frequency
  • -ab 96 - audio bitrate
  • -f flv - force format followed by format
  • "newfilename.ext" - output file

I used these settings to convert some 500MB+ Apple Quicktime (MOV) files down to ~20MB FLV which were perfect for uploading to YouTube.

Comments

Andy

Wed, 2012-03-21 23:20

Thanks - your command worked fine with MP4 videos as well

Antani

Tue, 2012-05-08 12:15

Thanks!

PC Share

Sat, 2012-07-21 23:15

I did a batch conversion using your parameters for MP4 to FLV. Used:

MP4_TO_FLV.BAT
---------------------------
IF EXIST "%1.flv" GOTO exit
ffmpeg -i %1 -ar 44100 -ab 96 -f flv %1.flv
:exit

BATCH_MP4_TO_FLV.BAT
---------------------------------------
for %%i IN (*.mp4) DO (mp4_to_flv.bat "%%i")

Only thing is the file name contains the old MP4 prior to FLV extension, ie myfile.mp4.flv. Manually removing ".mp4" from 90 files is not fun.

Tim

Thu, 2013-02-14 14:22

There are some tricks that you can do in a FOR loop to manipulate the filenames. Try something like:

for %%d in (*.mp4) DO ffmpeg -i %%d -ar 44100 -ab 96 -f flv %%~nd.flv

(note that this will not check for the destination file first..).

The %~nD gets JUSt the filename from the variable. See For /? for some more info on that.

Jesse

Thu, 2013-01-31 16:39

The example is for windows, but works perfectly well for linux too. Thanks!

Florian

Mon, 2013-03-04 17:02

That's it, thank you!

LouieK

Mon, 2013-03-11 09:13

I see this was posted some years ago but it worked flawlessly! I Had trouble getting .mov files to play in VLC due to the codec I think, I kept getting a blank screen with just audio. But this fixed all that, I can finally watch these video without having to mess around with quicktime. Thank you!