Why Remove FLV?

[KennyD]

I don't mean to gripe, I'm very happy with some of the features to CS6...but WHY oh WHY remove FLV production? Don't you know how many of us use the JWPlayer? Now I will have to produce all my videos in Camtasia and then CONVERT it to FLV.

Was there a problem with FLVs? I really love adding the MP4 encoding, I've wanted it for a long time, buy why remove FLV? I can't produce long clips in SWF plus lots of players only support FLVs (like the JWPlayer). Almost all of my clients request an FLV.

I realize I could be missing something here, but if somebody could explain why that would be great.

[Lawrence G. Miller]

I agree! FLV is a standard we need.

[costalive]

I need it too!

[Ute-S]

In the "Camtasia 6 upgrade question" thread, Dave O'Rourke, Camtasia Studio Lead Developer, wrote the following:

MP4 replaces FLV in CS6. It's true that we were focused on the FLV format in v5. At the time, FLV was the recommended way to do video in Flash. Then Adobe changed the game by announcing that they'd reached the limits of what the FLV container could do, and that they were adopting the stardards based MPEG-4 container instead. They also announced decoding support for H.264 video and AAC audio. You can read all about it here:
http://www.kaourantin.net/2007/08/wh...on-web_20.html

The MP4 output in CS6 is our response to this change. The MP4 files produced by Camtasia Studio use H.264 video compression and AAC audio compression. This combination delivers high quality at reasonable file sizes across a wide spectrum of content. In short: small files, high quality, no guesswork, standards based container, ubiquitous playback. That's a winning combination in my book.

I think that explains the "Why?" very well.

Best regards,
Ute

[brandonj]

While I agree MP4 is a better file format, I *need* to export in FLV. I also understand why MP4 is the "standard" in CS6, but do not understand why they had to take FLV away.

I am very upset - I cannot upgrade to CS6 because of this. I don't think that the new features warrant the time and pain it will be to have to then convert all my exported files to .flv.

[troy stein]

Hi Brandon,

I'm sorry for any frustration this causes you. I don't know if it will help, but I thought I'd try to provide a bit more background on removing FLV.

When we saw the results of MPEG4 output in our early CS 6 development work, we knew that FLV had a short shelf life. The MPEG4 files have better quality, often smaller file sizes, better playback on portable devices and produce faster than FLVs

In addition, our multitude of Flash output options are becoming unwieldy and we didn't want to confuse users any further by adding MP4 and keeping an inferior FLV output around.

<Interesting side note: we pay royalties to folks like the MPEG licensing association, Apple (for AAC audio) and On2 for its FLV encoding technology. When Adobe announced Flash player will support H.264, the folks at On2 strangely doubled their licensing fees. Odd business decision, imho. Twice as much for a technology which is now comparatively inferior? Weird.>

Well, knowing that ultimately we would be dropping FLV, we thought it best to do so as quickly as possible, so as to not hold out hope that this format will continue indefinitely. If we waited a year to drop FLV our users would have even more content and have harder time to change, so we felt it best to move decisively.

I know this change may cause some real difficulties for you and I won't pretend that they are minor. And for that, I'm sorry.

One reason we allow users to keep CS 5 installed along with CS 6 is to help migrate from one version to the next more easy.

Troy Stein
Camtasia Studio Product Manager

[kencalhoun]

So it sounds like you dropped flv just because of the expense of the licensing fees.

I NEED FLV too, of course. Everyone from youtube to 99% of the known universe uses flv, it's the standard for video production.

All my video players I use all read flv, not mp4... like the other ken says.

So while it's admirable that you're trying to keep on the cutting edge by adding higher res mp4 format, the VAST MAJORITY of us are likely very upset that you dropped flv because of the licensing costs; as it's a superb format.

Please reconsider that decision; I'm sure a lot of us will agree WE NEED FLV.

I wish I'd known that prior to upgrading, now I'll just go back to the Studio 5, since I need and expect FLV output format. Don't cheap out because of licensing fees, which is sounds like the main reason actually is. Backlash from other users will be huge, I predict.

Also, it looks like when you open a project in C6, it destructively upgrades the .camproj file, meaning once it's been upgraded to a C6 file, it's no longer open-able in C5... please make it different, so that when C6 upgrades a C5 project file, it automatically renames it to something like filename_new.camproj ... because now the file I converted is no longer open-able in C5. So I can't product flvs.

You guys screwed up bigtime by pulling flv output support; please add that back in pronto. Most of us need it.

-Ken

[brooks]

I don't mean to gripe, I'm very happy with some of the features to CS6...but WHY oh WHY remove FLV production? Don't you know how many of us use the JWPlayer?

JW FLV Player supports the playback of MP4.

http://screencast.com/t/Q8tRQgzM0N

If you're using an older version of the Adobe Flash media components a workaround is to change the file extension of the video from ".mp4" to ".flv".

This is because Flash Player doesn't care what the extension is, but the components are hard coded to only accept ".flv" as the extension. Change the file name and ensure users have at least Flash Player 9.0.115.

The new versions of CS4 ship with components that don't have these issues.

It's also useful to note that YouTube transcodes whatever you upload (regardless of if its flv, mov, avi, mp4, etc.) and one of the supported playback formats YouTube encodes to (watch in high quality) is MPEG4-AVC (h.264).

Granted there's a bit of pain here, but there's been a tectonic shift here and everything is heading in this direction.

[brandonj]

If you're using an older version of the Adobe Flash media components a workaround is to change the file extension of the video from ".mp4" to ".flv".



Thank you, this is an acceptable solution. I can use Flash Renamer (no relation to adobe flash) to auto change all extensions from mp4 to flv.

[pettysgs]

I'm adding my voice to the chorus for FLV. I work at Pfizer and they don't support .MP4 . Many large corps are behind the IT times, and because of security issues no one can download software. So even if they wanted to, they can't get the Flash update needed.

On top of that CS6 is really buggy. All and all a poor release. I'm going back to CS5 until or if you support FLV. That's what my clients want and need.

Thanks

Greg

[cheeop]

If you're passionate about this, go vote on the topic:
http://camtasia.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/7554-557

You can also add comments to it. A heavily voted topic will warrant their attention quicker.

[madonna007]

I agree too! FLV is a standard we need.






.

[Jimb]

Just to add to Brooks comment to Kenny here is an idea for those of you with clients that are limited in their ability to play MP4 files. Offer them the ability to toggle between an MP4 and an FLV.

Most of us have version 5 still at our disposal so after you build an MP4 file you can produce an AVI file, import it to version 5, and then create the FLV.

If you have clients that can't view an MP4 a simple click of a button plays the file they can view and/or download.

Here's a short example. Toggle files (http://mymail.playourvideo.net/shd.htm?id=jwplayer.mp4)

Regards - Jimb

[stuartmcgarrity]

I added an request to put back FLV support here:
http://camtasia.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/9217-557

Stuart

[Brent Eastman]

I do some pretty long presentations (20-40 minutes) with Camtasia. After upgrading to CS6 I came into a very frustrating issue. Upon output, my PIP audio would lose sync with PIP video. Working in the project everything looked fine, but after output to mp4 things went sour. I tried about 30 or so workarounds over the course of 2 work days. (I am an experienced video editor, working with an experienced team, we tried everything we could think of. I know about drop/non-drop timecode, video formats, encoding, etc. Could not find a fix, period.) After some serious troubleshooting, I decided to go back to CS5. Used the same original video/audio, imported to CS5 and produced as FLV, worked perfect.

Just figured I would add some other reasoning to bring back FLV.

[Sophie]

I'm new at using CS5/6, I find 6 much easier to use. I'm in no way qualified to comment on the validity of removing FLV. I just know that my client requires an FLV so that's what I have to produce. If someone could suggest a way of converting back to FLV (preferably a free software) I would really appreciate it.
Alternatively can someone tell me how to cut sections out of an audio track as well as the vid? I sort of managed to do it in CS6 but am struggling to do it for version 5.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Best regards,

soph

[ianProCastsCoUk]

@sophie, I have a blog post detailing how to convert mp4 video (from CamTasia 6) to flv (as exported by CamTasia 5) using the free ffmpeg:
http://blog.procasts.co.uk/2008/12/convert-camtasia-6-mp4-to-flv-using-ffmpeg/

If you're happy to download a zip file and work at the command line, you'll be converting the mp4 in under 10 minutes.

Regards,
Ian.

[Nick T.]

I am another that cannot even consider upgrading with having access to FLV.

I have to use streaming providers and they all are telling me that I need to produce in FLV - virtually all say that I cannot even use SWF (which rather blows me away) - are they lying or what?

[KenMcH]

I produce video for a major Corporate, as well as producing a lot of Camtasia Training Movies. Lately I’ve been using Camtasia 6 to train out Software by using Picture-in-Picture to talk with the Developers directly, who then explain the latest software to my viewers. I'm talking 4,500+ potential corporate users looking at some of these videos.

Since you unilaterally dumped FLV support - I'm completely stuck with Version 6! In this corporate environment the desktop build is locked down, and MP4 is NOT SUPPORTED! I will now have to DUMP my work and re-edit in Camtasia 5, or hack what I've produced in Camtasia 6 and convert to FLV.

I'm on a deadline for this work - and I'm really unhappy to be placed in this situation Techsmith.

You obviously made the wrong decision - your loyal users are telling you that - so please put FLV support back in to Camtasia 6 now.

Thank you.

Ken.

[smcnamara]

I like the new MP4 quality and file size. However, I had trouble playing an MP4 in my Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player only wanted to play the audio part of a movie produced in Camtasia as an MP4. However, I was successful playing audio and video through Quick Time.

Which players like MP4? :)

[Jimb]

I use the FREE JW PLayer. Here is an example of the player displaying an MP4 that compares an MP4 file & an FLV file. example of JW Player at work (http://mymail.playourvideo.net/shd.htm?id=jwplayer.mp4) Just click the " HD " button on the controlbar at the bottom right to switch between files. NOTE: The file name in the URL will not change when switching files as the change is done inside the player itself.

Regards - Jimb