Tips for Easy WebM to FLV Conversion: Online Sharing WebM Videos in FLV Format

November 19, 2013 6:31 pm / Posted by Ian Lam to Video Editing

Follow @IanLam1991

• Part 1: Difference between WebM and FLV
• Part 2: How to convert WebM to FLV

Difference between WebM and FLV

"Hey Guys! I just want to ask that is WebM loaded faster than FLV, H.264 AVI or other formats? If I have a video and I covert it into WebM, does it reduce size, or make it occupy less processor power or smoother? Or does it make online buffering faster than FLV videos or whatever? I am in touch with WebM blog for they said something like ’50%’ better compression. Is that true?? What are the actual benefits of WebM to normal user other than its royalty free codec?"

----from Aman Talwar, member of Google Groups > "WebM Discussion" group

What is the difference between WebM and FLV? Well actually, WebM is a combination particularly contains the MKV container format, VP8 video codec and Vorbis audio codec. Generally speaking, all these three contents are interchangeable elements, which mean it's completely possible to integrate H.264 or Theora video to an MKV file with audio codec in Vorbis, WAV, FLAC, AAC, or others. And FLV, according to Wikipedia, is the container file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player with the video and audio data encoded in the same manner. The relation between WebM and FLV is much similar to the situation applied to MP4 and MPEG.

As to the compression rate, quality and so on, WebM is generally a very good file format since the VP8 is competitive, while Vorbis is in essence better than MP3 and MKV is an all-round container format. However, while FLV is a much popular web share format, WebM is usually the limiting element, because it is newer and not many players can support it yet. Therefore, there’re many cases that we need to convert WebM to FLV in order to make the videos be accepted by the web players.

How to Convert WebM to FLV for Web Sharing

This part mainly focuses on how we can convert a .webm file into .flv container format. To get this task done perfectly, usually you will need a professional WebM to FLV Converter. Here, I’d like to use Doremisoft Video Converter (Video Converter for Mac) to show you how to conduct the conversion.

Download, install and run the converter, and then import the WebM movies from the folder you kept them by clicking "Add Files" icon. Batch conversion is allowed.

Next, click the "Convert to" menu bar and choose FLV as the output format from the "Web share" tab. You can also customize the output settings by yourself.

Make sure that all settings are done correctly, then press the "START" button to launch the WebM to FLV conversion.