If you like to download your favorite FLV videos from websites like Youtube and Google Video and get a collection of them, you may want to save them in a disc for a long time or you just want to watch them on a TV screen with the standalone DVD player.

Then what tools you can rely on to convert the FLV video to a standard DVD format and then burn to a DVD disc directly or with an additional burning tool like Nero or ImgBurn? There are numerous video converters to help you do this, but some are not so user-friendly; some works too slow; some may not really create standard DVD folder. If you are after for a free way to convert FLV video to DVD, you can try the following free programs which are reliable to convert FLV video to standard DVD format. Hope you can find the one that works for you.

DVD Flick

DVD Flick can convert most popular video formats including FLV to DVD format with supports for DVD Authoring, ISO image creating and DVD burning (so you don’t need an external DVD burning tool). However, its working speed may be a bit slow.

Guides to use DVD Flick:

http://beginwithsoftware.com/videoguides/dvd-flick-guide.html

http://stream-recorder.com/forum/dvdflick-burn-any-video-dvd-free-t4071.html

AVStoDVD

Like DVD Flick, AVStoDVD converts various video formats to DVD format and also supports DVD Authoring, ISO image building, and DVD burning using integrated ImgBurn. There is a related guide for you to refer to when using it.

Tip: Use ‘Add Title’ button or drag&drop your video in the title frame to add the FLV file, not using the ‘Open project’ button.

DeVeDe

DeVeDe is available for both Linux and Windows and works fast. It is able to convert many video formats like flv, avi, asf, wmv, wma, quicktime, mov, realtime, ogg and matroska to DVD format for you to burn to a DVD disc using an external burning program. There is a guide on how to use it

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Not all conversions give you a satisfying result and audio out of sync is a common problem that happens to most of us, no matter the conversion is from a DVD to your computer or between different video formats. The cause of such problem is complicated and it may be due to the source movie, the converting tools we use or the converting methods. Whatever cause it is, we need to fix the problem.

Mainly there are two audio out of sync problems:

1.The audio is before or after the video constantly by same amount throughout the movie.

2.The audio is in sync at the beginning but progressively goes further before or after the video as the movie progresses.

The second one is mostly connected with DivX conversions and requires more time and knowledge to solve, while the first one is more common and easier to solve. It is worse if the video has both two problems.

Solutions to the problems are varying according to different situations. I have searched online and find some solutions listing blow:

For audio out of sync problem in AVI files, refer to:

http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/260935-Audio-out-of-sync-5-seconds-DVD-ripped-with-DVD-Decrypter-AutoGK-%28 (for constant out of sync)

http://www.gromkov.com/faq/faq2004-0064.html (for both problems)

For audio out of sync problem in MPG files, refer to:

http://club.myce.com/f66/how-fix-v-sync-problems-mpg-files-59487/ (for both problems)

More references that can help you:

http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/how-to-fix-the-lagging-audio-of-a-converted-avi-file-t364181.html

http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/311331-How-to-fix-audio-out-of-sync-in-a-DVD-without-any-reconverting

http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/174082-How-To-Fix-Audio-Sync-Problems-101

http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/174081-How-To-Fix-Audio-Sync-Problems-102

Note: If you are annoying with such problem and don’t want to be bothered with fixing it, it is best for you to try to use converting tools for video converting or DVD ripping that will not have audio out of sync problems in the converted video.

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Have you ever ripped a commercial DVD and burn to a blank DVD to make a backup for yourself? If yes, what software did you use to do this work? I think most people use the free ripping tools like DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink and then burn with freeware like ImgBurn or other burning programs.

Recently, one of my friends turned to me for help, for he couldn’t play a burned DVD in the standalone DVD player. He ripped the usual VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS files to his hard drive with DVD Shrink and then burned the files to a blank DVD with ImgBurn in the option of “Write files/folders to disc”, but the burned DVD couldn’t play in his standalone DVD player, though the files could normally play in his PC. He was unable to figure out what was wrong.

Have you ever met such problem, when you are backing up you DVD?  Where was wrong in the whole operation in your opinion? Actually, where the shoe pitches is the ripping tool. Although the DVD files are created on your hard drive and you can play them in your PC, which seems you have ripped the DVD, it doesn’t mean the files have been ripped correctly and properly.

As we know, DVD ripping software like DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink haven’t been under development for years, while the DVD copy-protection technology are updated constantly. Thus the outdated DVD ripping software is unable to fully and correctly decrypt the newer commercial DVD. When you use the incorrectly ripped DVD files to burn, the burned DVD cannot play in your standalone DVD player. Therefore, you need to use a DVD ripping program competent to rip the latest copy-protected DVD so that you can burn playable DVDs swimmingly.

TouchUp DVD Ripper Platinum is such a tool to break the latest DVD copy protection with constant update. It can produce excellent output video and audio quality with super speed. To know its tons of features further, please check here.

Tip: Make sure the VIDEO_TS folder of the DVD you burned is in uppercase letters only; otherwise the standalone DVD players may not find the folder.

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Sometimes we want to trim a video file to get the exact parts we want or get rid of unwanted parts like commercials. Of course, there are many video editing software tools capable of doing this, but most of them will re-encode the file. Then what if you want to trim an FLV video without re-encoding in order to preserve the original video with no quality loss and save time wasting in re-encoding?

To trim a FLV video without re-encoding, we need a video editor that can open FLV format and can save the trimmed/edited file without re-encoding. There are two free programs that can do the work. One is FFmpeg and the other is Avidemux. Both are cross-platform software so they are applicable in Windows, Mac and Linux.

FFmpeg

FFmpeg is free and multi-platform for handling multimedia data. Many other software tools are based on it. Although it’s a command line program, which makes it difficult to use for novices, it’s an undeniable powerful program.

The following shows you how to ignore the first 1 m 50 s of an FLV video with the -ss option and then copy the next 20 seconds with the -t option:

ffmpeg -ss 1:50 -t 20 -i input.flv -acodec copy -vcodec copy output.flv

The -acodec copy and -vcodec copy options will copy the audio and video streams and place them in a new flv container. In this process, no re-encoding happens and the quality keeps as the original.

Besides FLV, FFmpeg can handle many other formats including AVI, ASF, BFI, IFF, MXF, OMA, etc. You can use it to work with more than just FLV.

Avidemux

Avidemux is easy to use and stable in performance, with support for most video input formats like AVI, FLV, MOV, WMV, ASF, MKV, MP4, VOB, MPG and output formats like AVI, FLV, MPG, MPEG, M1V, M2V, MP4, MKV and OGM.

The following describes how to select the wanted part of an FLV video and save without re-encoding.

There are two options at the bottom of the window: A and B. You can cut the video by clicking on A to drag the bar to select the start point and B to drag the bar to select the end of the clip. Then, in the left panel, select copy in the drop-down menu of both Video and Audio and select the FLV format in the drop-down menu of Format. In this way, the video and audio streams will be copied and you will save the trimmed video and audio without re-encoding.

For more guides on editing videos using Avidemux, you can refer to another article by clicking here.

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Handbrake is a cross-platform, powerful and free software tool that easily converts DVD video to another format, with many target devices like iPhone, iPod, Apple TV  for you to select in the Presets. With these presets, you can just simply choose the device you want to play your video with and then you don’t need to select the corresponding settings one by one manually. However,  there is no Zune HD option in the Presets. Therefore, if you have a Zune HD and want to convert a DVD to watch it in Zune HD  using HandBrake, you need to adjust the settings manually. Here are the steps and settings for converting DVD to Zune HD with HandBrake. Hope this is useful for you.

1.Download, install and launch HandBrake. Select the DVD file by clicking on Source.

Tip: If you are converting directly from a DVD, you may need to run a DVD decrypter in the background, since many DVDs are encrypted with copy-protection and HandBrake is unable to decrypt DVD.  You can use the freeware DVD43 as the decrypter.

2. Select the Iphone & Ipod Touch in Presets on the right side.

3. In the “Picture” Tab, if you video aspect ratio is 16:9, change the resolution to 480 x 272. For non 16:9 video, set the resolution to 480 x “blank”. This will let the non 16:9 video to have a right 480 width but a smaller or larger height adjusted by HandBrake.

4. In the “Video” tab, leave all settings as they are.

5. In the “Audio” tab, change to “Stereo” and 160kbps.

6. Set a destination folder to save the converted file in.

7. Let the other settings keep as what they are and then click on Start at the top menu bar to begin the encoding. A window will open to show you the converting progress.

After it finishes, you will get a H264, M4V file ready for you to drag and drop to the Zune.

Tip: You can save the above settings for converting to Zune HD next time by clicking on Add button at the right bottom and store the whole settings as Zune HD or any name you like in the Presets..

Note: If you want a program to convert your video to Zune with much better quality, faster speed and more formats supported, you can check TouchUp DVD to Zune Converter, which release you from manually making the settings. What’s more, it lets you directly convert a DVD to your Zune without any other tool to decrypt the DVD first. You can read a tutorial for it to know this intuitive converting software further.

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If you want to listen music that is as good as that on the CDs, or you are looking for a software to convert audio from CD without losing much of its fidelity, then MPC is the best format you should choose. MPC stands for MusePack. It is a free audio format of high quality

developed by a German named Andree Buschmann. Before it came out. Lame MP3 is the best lossy

compression format admitted by the public. People who attaches importance to acoustic fidelity of music

consider MP3 as the best music format. But today, MP3 can no longer qualify for this honor any more.

It is the time that MPC takes MP3’s place and makes you enjoy music with higher quality. Under medium

high bit rate, MPC can do better than MP3 in improving the music effect. While in high bit rate, people will

feel more comfortable in listening to music in MPC format than that of MP3 one. Making sure people can

enjoy the music of best quality with smaller computer space occupancy, MPC is the best option in playing

music by lossy compression encoding format.

No matter in spectrum analysis or audition comparison, songs in MPC format of 160kbps sounds more

beautiful than that of MP3 of the same bit rate, let along other lossy compression format. Besides higher

audio quality, MPC also shows its superiority in encoding speed. With the upgrade process by Frank

Klemm, present charger of MPC, encoding speed of MPC encoder of version 1.14 in Duron 650

reaches 5.5 times as faster as real=time play. Much faster than that of LAME.

MP3 has been the king in compressing audio since it was developed. Other formats like VQ, RM, WMA, etc) can not compete it. How about MPC? Without support of software and hardware and with no market promotion, low popularity

makes it impossible for MPC to take place of MP3 at present though it is superior when comparing with MP3

in acoustic fidelity.

Knowing some features of MPC encoding

MPC encoding project is improved on the basis of MP2, it is also used the same sub-band coding technology. But compare to MP2, MPC takes advantage by adopting psychoacoustic model and add other technologies like ANS (Adaptive Noise Shaping), CVD (Clear Voice Detection). It is even changed

Huffman coding during compressing to get higher compression rate. On the other hand, MPC is encoded by using

VBR, which is faster than CBR for the reason that VBR can reasonably distribute data so as to guarantee suitable

compression rate. In order to make sure an excellent quality of audio files, the maximum instantaneous rate of MPC can reach as quick as 1.32Mbps, almost the same as 1.41Mbps of CD.

Those who are using MPC is not so many now. Its target is those who requires super good quality.

However, if you do not have MP3 player and want to make or play music with PC, you can choose MPC

instead of MP3, for the latter one will make you forget the existence of MP3 with its high encoding speed

and excellent acoustic fidelity.

Software that help you convert audio files to MPC format

Here are two software that will help you reach your goal to rip CD or convert audio files of other formats to MPC format. Advanced CD Ripper Pro can help you rip your favourite songs from different CDs and convert them into MPC, which enables you enjoy the same

quality music in portable devices. And the other one Advanced MP3 Converter will help you convert any music from your PC or downloaded on the internet to MPC format.

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TouchUp DVD Ripper Platinum is a feature-full program and DVD splitting is one of its numerous features. If you want to split a large DVD movie into multiple parts so that to burn into multiple CDs or DVDs or just split the DVD into wanted clips, TouchUp DVD Ripper is an easy way to meet your splitting needs with a wide range of settings. Here is the tutorial on how to split a DVD when ripping using TouchUp DVD Ripper Platinum.

Method One: Direct DVD Splitting in Settings

There are many choices for you to select in the Split drop-down menu on the right panel of the main interface to split the DVD disc to parts of equal size. You can select one according to the CD/DVD you want to burn to or customize splitting by size or time.

Method Two: Manual Splitting DVD to Clips

1. Right click on the title or the chapter you want to split and select clip.

2. Now you get the Clip Movies Editor. Here you can set the Start point and the End point by dragging the slider bar. Click OK and the clip you have made will be added to the file list. Or click Next Frame and begin to make next clip.

3. The clips you split from the DVD will be added in the file list. You can convert them to any format you want. You can merge them by selecting and right clicking to choose Merge; then you will get just one file after conversion finishes.

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MP3 is a very popular digital audio coding and lossy compression format. Its full name is Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer III. It abandons some data of PCM audio data that is not important to human auditory system so as to decrease file size to the

maximum extent. There are a lot of technologies that are used in making MP3, including

applying psychoacoustics to make sure which part of audio files can be discarded. MP3 audio

can be compressed according to different bit rate, which provides a range to offset between

data size and sound quality. As a result, it greatly lower data size while the acoustic fidelity of files compressed is not worse than that of originals obviously, to most of users.

MP3 was invented and standardized by a group of engineers of Fraunhofer

Gesellschaft located in Erlangen, Germany in 1991.

The Advantage of MP3

MP3 and WMA are two different kinds of music formats and many converting software can convert audio files of other formats to these two popular ones.

128kbps of MP3  and 64kbps of WMA

128kbps of MP3  and 96kbps of WMA

128kbps of MP3  and   128kbps of WMA

160kbps of MP3  and   128kbps of WMA

192kbps of MP3  and 192kbps of WMA

In terms of the former two ones, the acoustic fidelity of WMA is better than MP3 while

MP3 becomes better than WMA in the condition of the last two kinds of bit rate. But when

it turns to under the third circumstance, there is not big deference between MP3 and WMA.

That is because when the compression rate is above 128k, the quality of WMA do not improve

a bit but MP3 quality is upgraded a lot.

Comparison between MP3 and WMA

According to what Microsoft said that WMA of 64kbps has the same quality as MP3 of 128kbps

when it is compressed by WMP7. However, when used WMP8 for compression, WMA will as good

as MP3 of 128kbps when its bit rate is only at 48kbps. Actually, WMA do not have such effect

though it has advanced technology. We discovered the following things after comparing these

two formats:

1. Under the same data rate, like 128kbps, WMA does better than MP3 in quality;

2. Under low data rate, fidelity of WMA is much higher than that of MP3. When the bit rate is

64kbps, quality of WMA is almost the same as it is when its bit rate is at 128kbps. But things

is totally different in MP3. When a song of WMA format at 32kbps can be heard, MP3 of the same bit rate can’t.

3.MP3 is absolutely a very successful calculating way. It is can be heard when its bit rate

reaches 128kbps and its quality can become great when using VBR compression of bit rate above 128kbps. But the data rate limit of MP3 is 128kbps, if bit rate

is lower than this number, the effect will be decreased a lot.

In a word, WMA mainly improve playback of high-frequency signal under very low data rate. When the

bit rate is higher than 128kbps, it has no advantage over MP3 and its high-frequency distortion is

very serious. But WMA is a best choice for compressing English listening materials.One thing you

should remember in mind is that MP3 of 128kbps is better than WMA of 64kbps and even much better

than 48kbps, for treble part of song played in WMA format has metallic sound–larger distortion.

Uncompressed WMA format is the best, but songs of WMA formats downloaded from internet are

compressed. That is why they sound not as good as MP3. Below 128kbps, WMA and MP3 nearly have no

differences but it takes advantage over MP3 for the file is smaller. However when bit rate is

above 128kbps or larger, MP3 is better than WMA.

There are a lot of arguments about which is better between WMA and MP3. Both of them are lossy

compression encoding formats and have their own merits. Technically, WMA is better than MP3 in

its low bit rate. When bit rate is lower than 128kbps, WMA is the best. The lower bit rate is,

the better of WMA you will feel. And with streaming playing support, WMA is a very popular

format used on the internet. If your computer is tight on disk space and you demand higher sound quality,

WMA is no doubt a best choice. When bit rate is increase to 128k, WMA is the best among all levels of

lossy encoding formats. But when it comes to MP3, high-frequency is obviously lost. It seems that 128k

is a turning point, when the bit rate is upper, the acoustic fidelity does not change a lot. When bit

rate comes to 192kbps, MP3 will become a little better than WMA in quality. So if your computer has

enough capacity and you have higher requirement on audio quality, then you should choose MP3 of high

bit rate (from 192kbps-320kbps). But encoder’s selection is also important.

MP3 is a smaller size file of compression rate of 1:10 or even 1:12 by using audio compression

technology, which can maintain finer acoustic fidelity. WMA is an audio compression format developed

by microsoft, which is later , smaller and better than MP3. The biggest difference between these two

formats is that standard of WMA is made by Microsoft while MP3 is an open criteria without copyright

problem, which makes it more popular than WMA.

Cloud computing, Microsoft, mp3

This is to show you how to download flash video from sites like Youtube, Google videos, MySpace, DailyMotion, Porkolt, DreamHost and convert the flv video to play in iPod. We need to use the VideoCacheView (free) and TouchUp iPod Video Converter (trial version).

Download the Flash Video

1.First, download and install VideoCacheView. You can download by clicking here.

2.Open IE (it won’t work in firefox) and go to the webpage with the video you want and play it. To check if the video is the webpage is flash video, you can right click on the video and it will say about flash player if it is as the below screenshot shows.

3.Launch VideoCacheView and press F5 to refresh

In VideoCacheView click on F5 to refresh and then click on the Last Access-tab to order by date and you should see a new file. Next right click on it and select Copy Selected Files To… and save the file in an open dialog.

Convert the Video

Now, install and launch TouchUp iPod Video Converter after download it by clicking here.

Next choose “File > Add Video File”. In the open dialogue, choose the FLV file just downloaded from the website. Or you can directly drop and drag the file to the main interface. Then set the output folder to save the final file in. Finally press the Convert button on the right to begin the conversion.

You may have found from the above that TouchUp iPod Video Converter is so easy to use with just a few clicks and furthermore, you can find its converting speed is so fast that you will get the file ready for you to play in iPod very soon. Besides, TouchUp iPod Video Converter supports a wide variety of formats including ASF, SWF, WMV, M4V, AVI, DIVX, FLV, XVID, OGG, MOV, MP4, RM and many more.

You can refer to our another how-to on converting DVD to iPod with TouchUp DVD to iPod Converter, if you need to convert DVD to iPod.

flash video, flash video to iPod, iPod video converter

This How-to will show you step by step the way to convert a DVD to iPod, using the free DVD ripping program DVDx and TouchUp iPod Video Converter trial version.

Rip the DVD

1.First, download DVDx 2.2 by clicking here and install it.

2. Insert a DVD. Launch DVDx and click File>Open DVD root to select the hard drive location and load the VIDEO_TS folder of your DVD. This will open the following window. If you are ripping a movie, just select the longest title; if you are ripping a TV show or anything with multiple episodes, select the episode you want to convert.

3. After you select the title, the Input Settings window will pop up. You can leave most of the settings as default. Just choose the language of audio, and language for subtitles. Besides, the Audio/Video Synchronization option is recommended to select, for it can make the output video and audio sync better, though take a little longer. Click OK to save the settings.

4. Click Settings in the main menu bar and choose Output Settings. In the Output Settings you need to choose WMV and click “Apply”.

5. Click File>Select Output File to select the destination folder to store the ripped file and then press the red encode button on the bottom right to begin the ripping.

Convert the Ripped DVD

After DVDx finishes the ripping which may take a bit long time, you should install and launch TouchUp iPod Video Converter. You can download it here.

Next choose “File > Add Video File”. In the open dialogue, choose the WMV file just created by DVDx and set the output folder to save the final file you will get.  Then press the Convert button on the right to begin the conversion.

The converting speed is very fast and you can get the file ready for iPod very soon. At last, launch iTunes and add the converted file to its Library. Now you can play the movie in your iPod.

You also can choose a pay program to convert a DVD to iPod directly. One such program to produce excellent output video and audio quality with fast working speed is TouchUp DVD to iPod converter. You can read the detail tutorial for it and find the easiest to use DVD to iPod converter.

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