[Synopsis: Total Video Converter and Moyea FLV to Video Converter are the best FLV conversion tools I've discovered.]

This live video thing ain’t just about vanity – it’s about improving (and pseudo-automating) production workflow. We’ve got a strong community going – this social network of one. It’s less about what I bring to the table, and more about who else is sitting at my table. Does that make any sense? It does to me.

So, with a video stream going 24/7 (and soon, a separate and complementary live audio stream), we have content coming out of our ears. Capturing it is still somewhat clumsy, however – as ustream’s on-demand recording tool isn’t perfect yet. I can hit the Record button and get to the archive almost immediately after I’ve finished recording something – but I can’t edit that video post-production, and I couldn’t easily extract the FLV to save it as a local file. Luckily, the developers gave me a separate “Download” link for all my video recordings.

The “problem” with ustream’s recordings is that they rely on the Nelly Moser audio codec, which is a proprietary piece of code. I can’t take their FLV and convert it directly to a more usable format (MP4, AVI, etc.) with any degree of ease – the video converts fine in any given conversion tool, but the audio generally converts into nothing but white noise. Here’s why Nelly Moser sucks:

Recording in flash player is done using a codec called Nellymoser codec. This is a closed format owned by a Nellymoser. So there is no way to convert recorded voice to other format.

As the encoding was done in client side, and flash player don’t allow you to choose the codec using, so we have to no way to record audio stream in other codec. But many times, we found we need to extract audio from recorded flv for usage other than playing back in FlashPlayer, then the issue arised.

So summary up, the problem all comes from client side, whatever RTMP server(Flash Media Server or Red5) you are using, you still have the same problem. As long as FlashPlayer is encoding it in NellyMoser codec, and disallowing you to switch codec, we have no hope to solve this problem.

Although, a bounty has been offered for the first person who codes an open source implementation of the Nellymoser codec:

…the question addresses potential license issues or copyright/patent infringements. Struktur as the principal of the open source implementation of the codec will be fully responsible for potential legal issues. The contractor will be exempted from legal responsibility. It may be uncommon to implement a proprietary algorithm as open source but it is not in reality. There are many examples of proprietary (and patented) software with co-existing, OS software equivalents. Some examples are DES, DSA(?), GIF, JPEG, MPEG-1/2/4, MP3, Quicktime etc.

Now, I could use the free FLV NellyMoser to MP3 converter to extract the audio out of an FLV and save it as an MP3 through a Web page, but that only solves part of the problem (as I would then have to merge the audio back with the video and wind up introducing potential syncing snags). People started to suggest FLV-specific desktop conversion tools for OS X and WIndows, but nothing worked completely well – or completely free, for that matter.

Ultimately, we found success with the Total Video Converter tool. Nelly Moser FLV audio converts just fine, but I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of options in TVC. There are tons of video conversion tools on the Internet today (AVI to MP4, AVCHD to AVI, RM to WMV, et al).

I was most impressed with the simplcity and performance of Moyea FLV to Video Converter – which proved to be the only FLV conversion tool that worked without a hitch. The author didn’t respond to my request for a review unit, so I’m forking over money to register it – even though the link I provide here is a direct link to my affiliate code (so if enough of you buy it, I can make up the cost for registration eventually).

Convert FLV Flash Video and Audio