Convert FLV to MPG — Free Online Tool
Convert FLV files to MPG format by re-encoding the video stream from H.264 to MPEG-2 and the audio from AAC to MP2 — producing files compatible with DVD authoring tools, broadcast workflows, and legacy media players that predate the Flash 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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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 carry H.264 video and AAC audio, codecs associated with modern internet streaming. Converting to MPG requires a full re-encode of both streams: the video is transcoded from H.264 to MPEG-2, the codec underpinning DVD and broadcast television, while the audio is converted from AAC to MP2, the audio standard used in MPEG-2 broadcast systems. Because these are entirely different codec families with different compression algorithms, this is not a simple remux — every frame is decoded and re-encoded, which takes more processing time and introduces some generation loss relative to the original FLV.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg command-line tool, which handles all decoding, encoding, and stream mapping for this FLV-to-MPG conversion. |
-i input.flv
|
Specifies the input Flash Video file. FFmpeg will detect its container (FLV) and demux the H.264 video and AAC audio streams for processing. |
-c:v mpeg2video
|
Sets the video encoder to MPEG-2, re-encoding the H.264 video stream from the FLV into the MPEG-2 format required by the MPG container and expected by DVD and broadcast systems. |
-c:a mp2
|
Encodes the audio stream as MP2 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II), converting the AAC audio from the FLV into the audio format natively associated with MPEG-2 video and required by most DVD authoring and broadcast ingest tools. |
-q:v 2
|
Sets the MPEG-2 video quality using a fixed quantizer scale where 1 is maximum quality and 31 is minimum. A value of 2 produces near-maximum quality MPEG-2 output, keeping visual degradation relative to the original FLV as low as possible at the cost of a larger file size. |
-b:a 192k
|
Sets the MP2 audio output bitrate to 192 kilobits per second, a standard broadcast-quality bitrate for MP2 audio that balances file size and audio fidelity across the full frequency range of typical video content. |
output.mpg
|
Specifies the output filename with the .mpg extension, which directs FFmpeg to write an MPEG program stream container holding the newly encoded MPEG-2 video and MP2 audio tracks. |
Common Use Cases
- Importing archived Flash-era web video into DVD authoring software like DVD Architect or Encore, which expects MPEG-2 video with MP2 audio
- Preparing FLV footage recorded from legacy streaming platforms for ingest into broadcast editing systems that require MPEG-2 compliant files
- Making old Flash video content playable on standalone DVD players by converting to an MPG format compatible with VCD or SVCD disc structures
- Migrating FLV recordings from early-2000s video platforms into a long-term archival format based on the widely documented MPEG-2 standard
- Converting FLV screen recordings or webinars into MPG for use with older video editing suites that lack H.264 decoding support
- Supplying MPEG-2 video files to television production workflows or cable access studios that mandate broadcast-standard delivery formats
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, some quality loss is inevitable because this conversion involves a full transcode from H.264 to MPEG-2 — two fundamentally different compression systems. H.264 is a more modern and efficient codec, so MPEG-2 typically requires a higher bitrate to achieve comparable visual quality. The default -q:v 2 setting used here is the highest quality end of the MPEG-2 quantizer scale, which minimizes that loss as much as possible, but the output will still be slightly degraded compared to the original FLV.
The MPG container based on the MPEG-2 standard conventionally pairs MPEG-2 video with MP2 audio, and many DVD authoring tools and broadcast ingest systems strictly expect this pairing. AAC audio, while more efficient and common in modern containers like MP4 and FLV, is not part of the core MPEG-1/2 specification and can cause compatibility failures in legacy hardware and software. MP2 audio is natively understood by virtually all MPEG-2-compliant devices.
The output MPG is encoded with MPEG-2 video and MP2 audio, which are the correct codec types for DVD, but DVD authoring also imposes specific constraints on resolution (720x480 for NTSC, 720x576 for PAL), frame rate, and bitrate. If your source FLV does not already match those parameters, you may need to add flags like -s, -r, and -b:v to the FFmpeg command to bring the output into full DVD compliance before importing into authoring software.
The -q:v flag controls MPEG-2 output quality on a scale from 1 (best) to 31 (worst). The default used here is 2, already near maximum quality. If you need to reduce file size at the cost of some fidelity, try values like 4 or 6. Unlike the CRF scale used for H.264 in the source FLV, MPEG-2's -q:v is a fixed quantizer, so the resulting file size will vary with the complexity of the source footage.
On Linux or macOS you can loop over files in a directory with: for f in *.flv; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v mpeg2video -c:a mp2 -q:v 2 -b:a 192k "${f%.flv}.mpg"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.flv) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v mpeg2video -c:a mp2 -q:v 2 -b:a 192k "%~nf.mpg". This processes each FLV in sequence and outputs a corresponding MPG file with the same base name.
MPG has very limited metadata support compared to modern containers. Most FLV metadata fields such as title, author, creation date, or stream duration hints will not be carried over into the MPG output, as the MPEG-1/2 program stream format was not designed with rich metadata in mind. If metadata preservation matters for your workflow, consider whether a container like MP4 or MKV might better serve your needs before committing to MPG.
Technical Notes
MPEG-2 video encoded at -q:v 2 produces high-quality output but at significantly larger file sizes than the source H.264 video in the FLV, because H.264 achieves far better compression per unit of visual quality. Expect MPG output files to be two to four times larger than the original FLV for equivalent content. The MP2 audio codec is limited to a maximum bitrate of 384k and lacks the psychoacoustic efficiency of AAC, so the 192k default is a reasonable balance for broadcast-grade audio. FLV's lack of subtitle and chapter support means there is no track metadata to lose in this conversion. One important limitation: if the source FLV uses the older Sorenson Spark (FLV1) video codec rather than H.264, FFmpeg will still decode it correctly before re-encoding to MPEG-2, but you may notice more visible compression artifacts due to the double-generation transcode from an already-lossy legacy codec. MPEG-2 does not support transparency, which aligns with FLV's own lack of alpha channel support, so no compositing information is lost.