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Here's three of our suggestions for what you can do with your downloaded .FLV files:
Between the iPhones, G1s, Storms, PSPs and everything else, it’s getting sort of hard to find a mobile device that doesn’t play video. So how can we get our ripped videos off of our hard drives and into our pockets? With SUPER, a free app that can quickly and easily convert between video encoding types.
There are a lot of apps out there which allow you to convert video formats, but we think that SUPER is the best, based both on the breadth of encoding options it gives you, as well as its large number of preset configurations. When you first open SUPER, you may be a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of options presented to you, but don’t worry; we’ll show you how to do the conversions you need without having to become an expert in digital video formats.
The most important option given to you by SUPER is in the top left. It’s the dropdown which lets you select what container the output video will be packaged in. You can select any of the standard containers, such as avi, mp4, wmv or even flv, or you can select a device preset. For instance, if you want to create a video file that your iPod or iPhone can play, you can simply select “Apple – iPod / iPhone (mp4)” from the dropdown list, and SUPER will automatically select the appropriate container, audio and video codecs, and aspect ratio.
There are presets for Apple’s players, the PSP, the PS3, the Zune, phones from Sony Ericsson, Nokia, NEC, Siemens, and even for the Nintendo DS (modded, of course). If you’re hoping to play your video on one of these, you’re in luck. You can just select your device from the list and you’re almost done. If you’re using a device not on the list, you’ll have to do a little homework to find out what settings to use. As usual, Google’s your friend on this one; a search like “G1 video encoding” will usually turn up what kind of containers and codecs your device can play.
Once you’ve specified the kind of file you want SUPER to output, you can either drag and drop the flash video files you want to convert to the empty box toward the bottom of the window, or you can browse to them by right clicking in SUPER and selecting “Add multimedia file(s).”
Once you’ve queued up all the files you want converted, press the “Encode (Active Files) button. Encoding is a processor-intensive process, and can take a while on slower computers. When it’s done, SUPER will by default place the converted files in a folder called “Output” in its install directory. If you want to change the output location, you can do so by right clicking and selecting the “Output File Saving Management” from near the middle of the list.
If you want to be able to watch your ripped flash video on your television and you have an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, you can stream to it with a program called TVersity. We could tell you how to do this, but we’d rather just point you to the very thorough how-to already posted on that very subject.
Want to save your flash vids for posterity? Want to be able to play Numa Numa on your DVD player? Then you’ll probably want to burn a video DVD. It’s possible to author video DVDs using only free software, but it’s a bit tricky. Fortunately, we’ve also written a guide about how to do exactly that. One note: before you begin, you’ll need to use SUPER, as described in the above section, to convert your .flv files to .AVIs.
Comments are closed on this article
dinadana
February 09, 2011 at 7:55am
This is useful but such a huge guide)
I just used Flash to Video Encoder PRO 4.7 to convert flv. I Liked it)
desertfish
October 22, 2009 at 1:46am
this is a useful tutorial and the software is easy-to-use,But i prefer leawo free youtube downloader http://www.leawo.com/youtube-download/
zer0110
July 10, 2009 at 7:09am
As I'm sure there is an advantage of some kind in using the FLV download/recording programs, its not necessary. As long as your running Linux anyways. I found an easier way, although I'm not sure it works for Windoze. When you watch a video, it has to be on your computer somewhere, waiting for processing. After you watch a video, keep the browser open on the same page, go to the Temp folder and you'll see a file named "FlashMVU7MX" or some kinda variant. Copy, Paste to your Video folder, and PRESTO! A nice, shiny copy of the video you just watched! After that, use your preference of format converter.
maccolar
May 27, 2009 at 9:10am
I'd like to recommend this <a href="http://video-converter.reviewstown.com/video-converter-wondershare.html">video converter</a>, it works pretty well for me.
ffilo
May 17, 2009 at 8:30pm
I use iwisoft swf to video converter to download and convert swf to wmv easily. It's the best swf to wmv converter i have tried. It can download online swf files from any web page and convert it to wmv with a few clicks! very useful!
Dummox
April 18, 2009 at 6:40am
Would our favorite magazine direct us to download infected software ? I don't see any comments from anyone at MaxPC about these issues, whats the real deal ??
nekollx
January 30, 2009 at 10:29am
i dunno what im doing wrong, when i use super to encode for ipod or PSP it gos through the motion but it never produces any output files.
lovewenc
April 02, 2009 at 11:54pm
For mac users, here are also many FLV video converter to convert videos to iPod on Mac.
johnnymegabyte
December 28, 2008 at 12:04pm
I found freeware VDOWNLOADER. Not only does it download from Youtube, etc ... it saves as AVI, MPEG2. No extra conversion required.
markallanson
December 15, 2008 at 4:16pm
will any of these tips and software help download full length TV shows, like from Hulu or the major networks?
johnnymegabyte
December 02, 2008 at 9:59pm
Dowloaded and installed MOYEA FLV Downloader ... should have done your homework. It's SPYWARE. Phone home ET
gothliciouz
December 17, 2008 at 7:48pm
anyone heard of VDownloader ?is also another great sofware. it can download videos from alot of sites, including youtube, myspace, metacafe.etc.
update: this program(moyea) is not as great as i thought, i can't get it to encode in stereo, only in mono, and also doesn,t detect the high definition on youtube, sadly i had to unistalled it, i'll stick with vdownloader.
Shalbatana
November 25, 2008 at 1:16pm
Download from the official site, and you're fine. I've used it on 8 machines, and no issues with any.
It's an established, well reviewed, well respected converter.... who's website is in major need of an overhaul.
RE: flash - there's a few plug-ins for firefox. I have one (forget the name) and it works perfectly. Pops up a dialog every time you play a flash video, and "records" it as it plays.
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"There's no time like the future."
fishandchips
January 21, 2010 at 4:52pm
Shalbatana wrote "RE: flash - there's a few plug-ins for firefox. I have one (forget the
name) and it works perfectly. Pops up a dialog every time you play a
flash video, and "records" it as it plays."wow Shalbatana, you wouldn't mind sharing that plug-ins name would ya?
fdwhacker
November 25, 2008 at 1:53pm
If you just want to download video off of YouTube or Google Video, you should find the video you want to download, copy the URL, go to www.keepvid.com, paste the url in the text box, and click download. It's that easy!
If you want to convert the flv file to a different format, go to www.media-convert.com and follow the simple insrtuctions to convert the file to one of many formats.
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Maximum PC is AWESOME!!
ScottProdigy
November 24, 2008 at 1:53pm
Firefox users can use any download utility to get .FLV files to their hard drive and then use one-click converting in Videora iPod Converter, which I believe was recommended a few issues ago in Maximum PC itself! (You can also d/l movies with Videora, but I find the software to be too much of a hassle.) That's my two cents!
bloodgain
November 24, 2008 at 12:22pm
The only real problem with SUPER is that the website looks a little... well, creepy. The whole site just gives you that "infect your PC now" vibe. I'd like to see them get better coverage with a better site, even though the app itself can be a little overwhelming at first. I just think most people pass them by due to the way their site looks, and the issues that can arise when trying to download the program (i.e. continuous loop).
It can also be tricky to use the app to create DivX DVD Player compatible DivX discs. I tried to convert an H.264 video in an MKV file to DivX, and was met with a "resolution not supported" error from my player. I gave up and just hooked my laptop up to the TV, but I was impressed with the number of presets SUPER presented. I might use it again to make some videos for my iPod the next time I'm taking a long flight.
Chocolate
November 24, 2008 at 3:58pm
Not 100% sure but I recently had to reformat my hdd because I downloaded the SUPER software. I went to that exact same site. It gave me all kinds of adware. It installed some random programs, one of which was Commander.
Info: http://www.pctools.com/mrc/infections/id/Adware.Commander/
I dont know. Im very reluctent to download that again.
I think that a safer alternative would be videora ipod converter. It says its for iPod but it works with my Zune 80 also.
fishandchips
December 16, 2008 at 8:35pm
I had super on my system for a short time and it was fine until I scanned my system with a online virsu scanner. started picking up grayware inside Super because it uses some of the same codecs that some known spyware use, I quickly uninstalled it. the problem is when you goto uninstall it, Super will not fully uninstall. it left behind stuff in the windows folder. scan this program with virustotal.com first and then tell me you want to run it. and see what it fines inside. Chocolate is right it's a very scary app because it even launchs a browser to goto it's website on start up.
I would stay away from super if I was you.
theqman
April 14, 2009 at 5:25pm
Ditto.
When the site asks me to clear my browser cache - ok, enable java script- ok, but to turn off ZoneAlarm etc? "creepy" is a good word for it. Guess this is one app I'll be avoiding.
Cause there's no friggin' way I'll be turning off any one of my anti malware programs just to get something that comes in many other different programs.
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"Never send a man to do a grenade's job"
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Azruelli
November 24, 2008 at 12:17pm
I personally prefer DownloadHelper, which is an addon for firefox, since it allows me to download multiple forms of media. And the flash player isn't all that great since there are some videos that I've downloaded using both Moyea FLV downloader and download helper and not all of them work that wonderfully (see, not at all) even after I'e downloaded the same video several times. The ideo player starts up, but when it's loading the video it just hangs at the loading screen for the player. Just some personal problems I ran into with the player, but I hope it works better for everone else
jws1272
August 16, 2009 at 11:39pm
I tried Moyea & couldn't get one vid to download. I also tried that Vdownload & zip....what am I doing wrong?
