[PLUG] Convert .flv to something

[John Jason Jordan]

On Fri, 16 May 2008 12:52:08 -0700
Mel Andres <mel97215 at comcast.net> dijo:

> Quentin Hartman wrote:
> > On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 12:44 PM, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net>
> > wrote:
> >   
> >> What I need to know most is what format would be best for playing the
> >> video when placed in an OOo Impress file running on Windows. I know
> >> nothing whatsoever about movie formats, so any suggestions are welcome.

> > ffmpeg to convert to an MPG file is probably your best, following that maybe
> > mplayer/mencoder, or avidemux (though I'm not sure avidemux supports flv).
> > ffmpeg is incredibly featureful and generally can do a good job, but the
> > defaults are often "sub-optimal". So, if the quality is noticeably degraded
> > from the original start poking at the options and see if you can improve
> > things by explicitly specifying various options.
> > http://howto-pages.org/ffmpeg/#basicvideo is a reasonable starting place,
> > though I have no idea if this is more or less sophisticated than what you've
> > already done.

> I can think of two possible solutions. One is VLC medial player. There 
> are both Windows, and Linux versions (free).  http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
> 
> Another is a Windows only application called ConvertXtoDVD. I don't know 
> if it is free, but it supposedly can convert any video media to a 
> standard DVD.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I can request that software be
installed on the Windows XP computer in the classroom, but I have no
direct control over it. But having said that, I have just discovered
that it does have VLC on it. And VLC does play the original .flv file
perfectly, complete with audio. 

So VLC is my backup, but I'd still like the video to play in Impress,
and Impress (at least version 2.2/Windows that is installed on the
classroom computer can't handle a .flv file at all. That's why I
originally used ffmpg to convert the .flv to .mpg. Impress does play
the .mpg file, but without sound and the resolution is much lower than
the original. 

I think the problem with the .mpg file is my own failure to grasp how
to use ffmpeg correctly. I note that the man page for ffmpeg is long,
and I did not understand most of the switches and options.

However, as a starter, it would be good to figure out the properties of
the .flv file. If I can figure that out I would have a better chance of
getting ffmepg to do a good conversion. If I right-click on the .flv
file in Nautilus and then on Properties it tells me the duration, that
the Video Bitrate is 316 kbps, and that for the Audio there are 0
channels. The display is "N/A" for Audio Codec, Sample Rate and
Bitrate. is there a better tool to find out the parameters of the .flv
file?