Flash glossary: FLV
The FLV and F4V formats are container formats, each of which is associated with a set of video and audio formats. These formats offer technological and creative benefits that enable you to combine video with data, graphics, sound, and interactive control. You can easily put video on a web page in a format that almost anyone can view.
FLV is the older file extension. Although the FLV format can include video encoded using the Sorenson Spark or On2 VP6 codec, Adobe Creative Suite 5 (and later) applications can encode and decode video using only On2 VP6.
Note: Sorenson Spark is supported in Adobe Flash Player 6 and later. Use the Sorenson Spark video codec if you intend to publish Flash documents (using Flash Professional 8 – CS4 only) requiring backwards compatibility to Flash Player 6 and 7—especially if you anticipate a large user base that has older computers because it is much less computationally demanding to play back than either the On2 VP6 or H.264 codecs.
Using the On2 VP6 codec in the FLV format, you can encode video that includes the alpha channel to make parts of the video transparent. On2 VP6 is the preferred video codec to use when creating FLV files that you intend to use with Flash Player 8 and later. The On2 VP6 codec provides higher quality video when compared to the Sorenson Spark codec encoded at the same data rate, and support for the use of an 8-bit alpha channel to composite video. The On2 VP6 codec is noticeably slower to encode and requires more processor power on the client computer to decode and play back. For this reason, carefully consider your target audience when choosing the format for your video content.
After creating an FLV movie file (using Adobe Media Encoder or other software), you can use the Video Import wizard to import the video file.
To learn more about the FLV file format, watch the video tutorial titled Creating FLV and F4V files and see the section titled Video formats and Flash in the Flash documentation. Download the specification from the FLV/F4V Technology Center.
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