What is the Best Way to Convert FLV Files?
With the growing popularity of online video and video sharing sites such as YouTube, Metacafe, Google video etc a more and more common requirement web users have is "How do I download and save Web Video to my computer?" or "How can I download web video to playback on my iPod?"
A quick Internet search will throw up a host of youtube mp4 Converter offering Free Flv conversion, and a host of ads offering paid software products that offer similar services.
So which one is right for you?
Firstly the free site offerings. Some of these actually do the job such as directly typing in the URL from sites such as YouTube and it will download and save it to your computer as a flv file for playback later. The main drawback of many of these sites is that if you then wish to convert the flv file to another format such as MP4 for your Ipod you have to buy a paid version of the software which will do it for you! However, if all you require is the downloaded flv file to playback on your computer then many of these sites will met your needs.
If you wish to convert flv files to AVI, Mpeg, Mov or any of the other popular formats then I would recommend one of the paid software versions. There are a host of these on offer and are pretty reasonably priced, most at the $30 - $40 mark for fully featured versions.
We tested 5 of the top offerings which all had a comprehensive range of Flv file conversion options.
Our testing parameters ranged from Ease of use, price, input file options and of course the main one being output file options.
With the exception of one, all of the other four products tested allowed you to convert flv files in 3 easy steps;
- Enter the web video URL
- Choose your preferred output options (eg Ipod, Iphone etc)
- Hit the "Convert" button
All 5 products were great to use and did the required job. The product that we liked most was Flash Converter 2. This came out tops due to its easy to use interface, wide range of file conversion options and great manufacturer website and support.
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