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Kevin5ECB
Participant
November 20, 2020
Answered

Usage of Flash 'CODEC' after 2021

  • November 20, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 1000 views

(I know this is... beating a dead dog; but...)
All the other posts have been focused on Adobe killing their Flash plugins for all the different browsers.
My question is about the CODECs for *.flv files.
Does Adobe have a kill switch for their CODEC???

 

[i.e. In my OLD... archives; I have a large collection of *.flv videos, which I want to convert to *.mp4 and I am wondering how long I have to do these conversions]

 

P.S. In 2006-2015, I was a computer tech doing updates on 300+ PCs. And Adobe was always coming out with a new revision of flash; and killing the previous one, because it was vulnerable! 
They must have some really crappy programmers to have that many holes in their software!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Test Screen Name

    Flash is not a CODEC. Flash Player is a plug-in for browsers. There is also Flash Projector, used to read and display standalone files. Report is that both of these things will reach end of life, and then will time bomb. Adobe may chip in to offer additional info and thank you for your compliments.

    4 replies

    A
    Anonymous
    December 30, 2020

    Try looking into VLC to play flv files.

     

    Also tell people about ruffle.rs

    Its going to let sites use swf after 2020. Also this... https://community.adobe.com/t5/flash-player/psa-playing-flash-after-2020/td-p/11716613

      serily
      serily
      Participant
      December 20, 2020

      I am incredulous, but considering it's Adobe, not surprised, that there is no direct answer to your key question: How to convert FLV files to a format such as MP4, even after the EOL date.  I've read Adobe's FAQs.  Astonishing that they do not include this obvious concern.

      In the past month since these posts, has anyone succeeded in converting a lot of FLV files to a widely supported format (I would want MP4), and if Adobe Media Encoder is the best solution, will it be free and available past 2020?

       

      I see that the Media Encoder page is titled, "Free Media Encoder | Download free Adobe Media Encoder trial."  I'll give it a try, but no way I'll finish by January 10, and nowhere on Adobe's product pages do I see the word "Free," just "Trial."

      Clarification, please?

      serily
      serily
      Participant
      December 28, 2020

      Follow-up:

      • Free Media Encoder is NOT "free." It's a one-week trial and requires setting up Creative Cloud. Personal preferences for data-sharing can be changed before proceeding, and I suggest doing that. 
      • Conversions can be batched, so a week should suffice.  Videos of various lengths (I have a wide variety of client input, finished productions, stock video for evaluation, some recordings, etc.) take up to 3 minutes each on average, but many go much quicker. So you should need to let it run all weekend.
      • MANY flv files were rejected as being an unrecognized type of compression.  The batch process often froze, requiring a restart. But progress is indicated, so with a bit of intuition, trial and error, I was able to pick up where it left off. 
      • During the conversion batch process, MANY flv files were not processed.  Probably more than half of them.
      • So I guesstimate that I converted about a third.  The rest, I will load individually into a player (Total Recorder VideoPro), then save as MP4.  Total Recorder required me to install an external decoding engine (FFDShow) that put the necessary Flash codec on my system. It now reads flv files without having to actually meddle with FFDShow.  The usual warning: Be super careful when downloading free unfamiliar software. I got it from SourceForge.
      • Oh, and what was Adobe thinking when they designed Media Encoder?  The text labels (buttons, etc.) are in a miniscule font, almost impossible to read on my 27" monitor, and cannot be adjusted. The batch conversion process, possibly the most basic and most used function, is hardly intuitive.  It should have taken 3 minutes to figure out. Took more like half an hour of exploration and trial. But it was better than nothing.

       

      Good luck!

        jeromiec83223024
        jeromiec83223024
        Inspiring
        November 24, 2020

        Yeah, I would convert these now.  Flash Player is not a codec, but a lot of video players (VLC, Real Player, etc.) and converters use the Flash Player on the local system to play back .flv.  (FLV itself is a wrapper format, and there were a number of historical Codecs like On2 and Sorenson VP6 that Flash supported over the years).  Applications depending on the system Flash to play or decode FLV are going to break when Flash goes EOL.

         

        I'm not 100% sure off the top of my head, but I think you can can batch convert FLV using Adobe Media Encoder, which is really convenient for doing large batch conversions (I'm usually working with GoPro videos...).  Hopefully it's as easy as setting up the job on a Friday and just letting it run for the weekend.

        T
        Test Screen NameCorrect answer
        Legend
        November 20, 2020

        Flash is not a CODEC. Flash Player is a plug-in for browsers. There is also Flash Projector, used to read and display standalone files. Report is that both of these things will reach end of life, and then will time bomb. Adobe may chip in to offer additional info and thank you for your compliments.

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