What's a .flv file and how do I play it?

It's a flash video file. VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ plays it and many other programs do aswell .

 

Off the top of my head you have
iSquint - flv to mp4

Mplayer Encoder flv to lots of stuff but it is command line so you need to know what you are doing a bit more
Example being "mencoder input.flv -ofps 15 -vf scale=300:-2 -oac lavc -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2:acodec=mp3:abitrate=64 -o output.avi"

Sorry I'm not more help I haven't had a need to convert them

 

i like ffmpegx. It will convert most anything to most anything. Many formats are supported like all the mp4s, including 3GP, XviDivx, and h.26* as well as flash and vcd

 

I really like iSquint for making conversions to .mp4 from the .flv format. I've been using it to convert files downloaded from TouTube.

 

If you use safari, you can make the process easier with Podtube or Tubesock, they both download the Youtube file and put it in iPod (mp4) format.

 

I've had VLC give me some grief in the past when playing back .flv files. The Perian plugin for QuickTime, however, has handled every flash movie I've thrown at it. Perian's also good in that you can use flash video in the iLife apps.

I used to use ffmpegX for converting .flv to mpeg4, but with Perian there's no real need unless you're putting stuff on your iPod or things like that.

 

ive got an flv that doesnt play in vlc,id rather not convert it

nvm i upgraded vlc

 

I second that, contrary to what everyone says, I have never been able to get VLC to play a .FLV file. I recently discovered Perian, and it plays they perfectly in Quicktime. It also plays many other formats as well.

 

VLC is picky about where the .flv file is located.

I believe the player and the .flv file must be in the same folder.
If I recall correctly, it's not, it won't play.