Video Spark

Videos have become an integral part of the internet in the past five years. Whether videos are used as a source of entertainment or to impart information and knowledge, almost every site on the internet uses a video of whatever length.

The full form of FLV is Flash Live Video. It is actually a certain type of file that helps to deliver videos using the software Adobe Flash Player. However this system works only over the Internet. The great thing about playing back videos on the web using FLV is that it produces good quality of video because of the great rate of compression that it offers. Because of its good video quality, FLV has very quickly become one of the most used formats for viewing embedded videos over the internet. There are some big names over the Internet who have adopted FLV as their choice of video viewing file format, which includes – YouTube, Reuters.com etc. FLV is also easily viewable and hassle-free as all it requires to function is the Adobe Flash player that is quite easily available for users.

It also makes things easier for those who want to put up videos on the internet. All they have to do is convert their video file, that must be in either AVI or MPG file format into FLV and that can easily be put up and viewed over the internet.

So as mentioned before, if you need to view the video in FLV format that you see on a site, you must initially have a Flash player which plays the FLV video. However this is not the one and only Media player that can be used to view a video that is FLV format, there are a few other similar Media Players that can be used for the same; these include the Real-Time Video Player or the Zoom Player and Windows Media Player etc. The FLV file that is played uses two streams, a video and an audio. The video bit stream that is used is the H.263 standard for video; this is also commonly known as Spark. The Audio bit is also very commonly found in the form of MP3.

Another pro in the case of FLV is that the file format is actually a streaming video format. Because of this it makes it even easier for the viewer to view a video in FLV format, the viewer does not even have to wait for the entire piece of video to be downloaded and can start viewing from when it starts downloading itself, you can start watching the video at any point of time that you wish. So if the Flash video you are downloading is 20 minutes long, you do not have to wait the entire time that it takes for the file to be downloaded. If you want to watch only the last five minutes of the video, you simply have to point your curser on the time column of 0:20 (which is twenty minutes) and play from there and you would be able to watch the last five minutes of the video.

There are two ways by which you can play your FLV video file. You can either use the Progressive Streaming method or the Server streaming Method. Progressive Streaming for playing back videos used for videos that are small in size while Server Streaming Method is used for videos that are larger in size and need protection of content.

Of course there are pros and cons to using a FLV file format for a video on the internet; but because of the advantages being more this is the file format that is most commonly used by most of the big names on the web. FLV files therefore have become popular because the Flash Files can be used for a variety of different kinds of videos; these include video films, video presentations as well as animations that are often required for a website. The software that is required to play the FLV File, which is usually the Flash Player is easily available and can be used for viewing the file and is a hassle-free method of viewing a video for even an amateur viewer. Flash Files are also not very heavy that is the reason why FLV files can very easily and quickly be downloaded for viewing; even those viewers who are using slow and old computers and a dial-up internet connection find it very easy to download a Flash File. Lastly, even other videos that do not belong to the FLV file format can easily be converted into this format and then viewed. All these reasons make FLV one of the most popular File formats that are used on the Internet for videos.

However, FLV File formats also have their shortcomings. The first reason is true for the creators of the video rather than those viewing it. This is that, most of these Flash videos are expensive to create and also take up a lot of time. Another big disadvantage is that the FLV file formats do not work with Spider (The software that is used by search engines for search optimization). This makes finding a FLV file difficult and not as easy as other sites without FLV content. Finally, the main reason why many users and viewers may lose their patience with FLV files is that those sites that have FL v content on their sites; whether in the form of instructional or entertaining video or even in the form of a promotional banner or animation, will definitely take up much more time to open for viewing than any other site that is free from FLV content. FLV videos might not take too much time to download but for a site using FLV files for decoration purposes becomes a hindrance to the time that the site will take to open for visitors to view the page; this is especially true for those viewers who use a dial-up broadband connection for their internet services.