To convert, or not convert? That is the question
And the answer is binary…
I wanted to convert some FLV files to a format that would play on my stand-alone LG Blu-Ray player via Home-Link and found a working solution worth sharing.
To convert one or more FLV (Adobe Flash Video Container) files to the more compatible MKV (Matroska) container “format”, simply follow the instructions below:
- You’ll need a copy of the FFmpeg executable:
Download the latest Static 32-bit build from Zeranoe’s FFmpeg Builds page.
- You’ll now extract the compressed FFmpeg build you just downloaded.
To extract the .7z file, I recommend using either 7-Zip (free!) or WinRAR (unlimited use shareware).
- Now copy the executable ffmpeg.exe from the bin folder that you just extracted to the same folder as your FLV files reside in.
- Open Notepad. (Shortcut: Windows key + R / Windows key + Q
and type “notepad”. Hit enter.)
- Write or copy the following line into the empty notepad text editor box:
for %%a in (“*.flv”) do ffmpeg -i %%a -vcodec copy -acodec copy %%~na.mkv
- Go to File and click “Save As…”
- Browse to the folder where your FLV files reside.
- In the file name box, enter (including the double quotes) a name for the file, with a .bat extension. For example:
“FLVTOMKV.bat”.
- Hit Save.
- Browse to your newly created batch file and double click it to start the batch conversion process. It should only take up to a couple of minutes for a 300 MB file on a relatively new computer. You should see the progress clearly in the black command box that pops up.
NOTE #1: If nothing happens or you get an error message that you can’t read, try running the .bat file from the command line: Hit the Windows key + R / Windows key + Q . Type CMD. Hit ENTER. Type the full path to the batch file and hit ENTER again. You should now be able to read any error messages.
NOTE #2: You may need to rename the files to remove any spaces or special characters, or else the script can fail. I would suggest making copies of the original files, then you can simply copy and paste the old filenames back after conversion.
NOTE #3: Some FLV files may have MP4 extensions, and vice-versa. Either rename the extension to FLV if this is the case, or try changing the .bat command line to:
for %%a in (“*.mp4”) do ffmpeg -i %%a -vcodec copy -acodec copy %%~na.mkv
