Flash Video
Jul/091
FlashVideo(FLV) is the video format that Macromedia created for their FlashPlayer rich media browser plugin. Due to the fact that FlashPlayer plugin (now owned by Adobe) has a web presence in excess of 97%. It is safe to say that about every computer that connects to the internet can play video in FlashVideo format.
The file format of .FLV files is by design based on the h.263 standard. The newer FlashPlayer(9.0.0.29 or above) supports h.264/mp4 files which may have extension .flv(.f4v).
Web Video File Formats
Jul/091
File formats containing video are called video formats. These file formats now in the time of web video are usually container formats. A container format is essentially a sequence of packets containing data like video frames and audio samples. This sequence of packets can be regarded as a stream, thus many of the modern container file formats can be used for streaming video. Besides the streamable packet structure these container formats provide another great benefit – codec abstraction. A codec (‘coder-decoder’) is a algorithm that allows video information to be stored digitally in a more efficient manner. With this codec abstraction container formats are capable of “outliving” the initial codec they were intended to work with and achieve better results(in video quality/storage) while maintaining a good level of compatibility over time. Some formats have been created around a single codec instead of supporting multiple ones, however that approach is considered outdated in the web video era.