Convert FLV to MPEG — Free Online Tool
Convert FLV (Flash Video) files to MPEG format using MPEG-2 video and MP2 audio codecs — right in your browser. This is a full re-encode from H.264/AAC (the common FLV codec pair) to the legacy MPEG-2 standard, making your Flash-era video compatible with broadcast systems, DVD authoring tools, and hardware players that predate the Flash video era.
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FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
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Settings
Note: Browser-based encoding uses approximate quality targets. For precise CRF compression, copy the FFmpeg command above and run it on your desktop.
Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
FLV files typically contain H.264 video and AAC audio — codecs developed well after the MPEG-2 standard. This conversion fully re-encodes both streams: the video is decoded from H.264 and re-encoded using the mpeg2video encoder, and the audio is decoded from AAC and re-encoded as MP2 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II), the native audio format of the MPEG container. There is no stream copying here — every frame is decoded and re-compressed, which means processing is CPU-intensive and some generation loss is introduced. The output is a standards-compliant MPEG-2 program stream (.mpeg) compatible with legacy hardware and broadcast-oriented toolchains.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg program, the open-source multimedia processing engine that handles all decoding, re-encoding, and container muxing for this FLV-to-MPEG conversion. |
-i input.flv
|
Specifies the input Flash Video file. FFmpeg will detect the container as FLV and identify the internal streams — typically H.264 video and AAC audio — which will then be decoded for re-encoding into MPEG-2 and MP2. |
-c:v mpeg2video
|
Sets the video encoder to mpeg2video, FFmpeg's MPEG-2 video encoder. This re-encodes every frame of the H.264 video stream from the FLV into MPEG-2 compression, the format required by the .mpeg container and compatible with DVD and broadcast systems. |
-c:a mp2
|
Sets the audio encoder to MP2 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II), re-encoding the AAC audio track from the FLV into the native audio format of MPEG-2 program streams. MP2 is required for compatibility with hardware MPEG-2 players and DVD authoring pipelines. |
-q:v 2
|
Sets the MPEG-2 video quality using the quantizer scale, where 1 is the highest quality and 31 is the lowest. A value of 2 produces near-maximum quality MPEG-2 output, prioritizing visual fidelity over file size — important when converting from an already-lossy H.264 source to avoid compounding quality loss. |
-b:a 192k
|
Sets the MP2 audio bitrate to 192 kilobits per second, the standard bitrate for broadcast-quality MP2 audio. This is higher than the 128k default often used for MP3, because MP2 is less efficient and requires more bits to achieve comparable perceived audio quality. |
output.mpeg
|
Specifies the output filename with the .mpeg extension, which tells FFmpeg to write an MPEG program stream container. This format is recognized by DVD authoring tools, legacy hardware players, and broadcast ingest systems expecting MPEG-2 content. |
Common Use Cases
- Archiving old Flash video downloads (e.g., saved YouTube or Vimeo clips from the 2000s–2010s) into a format playable on standalone MPEG-2 DVD players without a computer
- Preparing FLV footage recorded from live-streaming platforms for ingestion into broadcast editing suites that require MPEG-2 as an input format
- Converting Flash-based training or lecture recordings into MPEG format for playback on older institutional AV hardware installed before H.264 became standard
- Migrating a library of FLV files from a legacy Flash media server into an MPEG-2 format suitable for long-term tape or disc archive workflows
- Re-encoding FLV game capture or screen recordings into MPEG-2 for use with DVD authoring software like DVD Flick or ImgBurn that expects MPEG-2 input
- Producing MPEG-2 test clips from FLV source material for verifying compatibility with older set-top boxes or digital signage players
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — this conversion involves a full re-encode of both the video and audio streams, so some quality loss is unavoidable. The FLV's H.264 video is decoded and then re-compressed using MPEG-2, which is a less efficient codec; at equivalent bitrates, MPEG-2 will appear softer or show more compression artifacts than H.264. The default quality setting (-q:v 2) is the highest quality end of the MPEG-2 scale, which minimizes this loss, but the output file will generally be larger than the original FLV for comparable visual quality.
MPEG-2 uses a less advanced compression algorithm than H.264 (used in most FLV files), so it requires more bits to represent the same visual detail. If your source FLV was encoded at a low bitrate, the MPEG-2 output will amplify those artifacts further after the re-encode. For the best results, use the highest quality setting (-q:v 1 or 2) and ensure your source FLV is a high-quality file. MPEG-2 also handles fine textures and fast motion less efficiently than H.264, which is an inherent limitation of the format.
The MPEG container format was standardized around MP2 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II) as its native audio codec, which predates AAC. This tool re-encodes the AAC audio track from your FLV into MP2 to ensure compatibility with hardware MPEG-2 players, broadcast equipment, and DVD authoring tools that expect MP2 audio in MPEG streams. MP2 is a lossy format like AAC, but it is less efficient, so the default 192k bitrate is used to maintain acceptable audio fidelity.
Yes. The video quality is controlled by the -q:v flag, which accepts values from 1 (best) to 31 (worst) for MPEG-2 — the default is 2, which is near-maximum quality. To lower file size at the cost of quality, try -q:v 5 or higher. Audio quality is set by -b:a, with options like 128k, 192k (default), or 256k. For example, a lower-quality, smaller-file command would be: ffmpeg -i input.flv -c:v mpeg2video -c:a mp2 -q:v 6 -b:a 128k output.mpeg
No — the MPEG container format has very limited metadata support compared to FLV, and standard FLV metadata tags (such as title, author, creation time, or Adobe-specific stream markers) are not preserved in the output MPEG file. The conversion focuses on the audio and video streams only. If metadata preservation is important, you should record any FLV metadata separately before converting.
Yes. On Linux or macOS, you can use a shell loop: for f in *.flv; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v mpeg2video -c:a mp2 -q:v 2 -b:a 192k "${f%.flv}.mpeg"; done. On Windows Command Prompt: for %f in (*.flv) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v mpeg2video -c:a mp2 -q:v 2 -b:a 192k "%~nf.mpeg". The browser-based tool processes one file at a time, so the FFmpeg command is the recommended approach for bulk conversions or files larger than 1GB.
Technical Notes
FLV files most commonly contain H.264 video and AAC audio — both of which are modern, efficient codecs that are entirely incompatible with the MPEG-2 program stream format at the container level. The output .mpeg file uses MPEG-2 video (ISO/IEC 13818-2) and MP2 audio (ISO/IEC 11172-3), both of which are fixed, non-negotiable parts of the MPEG-2 program stream specification used by broadcast and DVD systems. MPEG-2 does not support transparency (alpha channels), subtitles, chapter markers, or multiple audio tracks — so if your FLV had any such metadata or extended stream data embedded via AMF (Action Message Format) metadata packets, it will not be carried through. The -q:v parameter for mpeg2video is a variable quantizer scale (lower = better quality, larger file), unlike the CRF scale used for H.264 in FLV encoding. File sizes for MPEG-2 output tend to be significantly larger than the equivalent H.264 FLV at comparable visual quality, often by a factor of 2–4x, due to MPEG-2's lower compression efficiency. This format is best used when downstream hardware or software explicitly requires MPEG-2 and cannot accept modern codec alternatives.