Macromedia Flash FLV Video File Format

Binary file format that delivers "bitmapped" video, limited to one video and one audio stream per file, over the Internet to one or another versions of the Macromedia Flash Player. FLV content may also be incorporated in SWF files by ActionScript external references.
In 2005, Adobe Systems Incorporated acquired Macromedia. During this year, under the Macromedia brand, the company published specifications for version 8 of the SWF file format (SWF_8) together with documentation of the FLV format. The October 2005 issue of Macworld magazine reports that the Flash Professional 8 application offers a new video codec called VP6 from a company named On2. In late 2006, commentators predicted the advent of version 9, which may be branded as Adobe. "Bitmapped" video in FLV files may be compressed in various ways (see relationships above); the video quality in these encodings is expected to range from good to very good. The specification limits uncompressed audio to 44 kHz sampling and 16 bit words, thus providing very good fidelity. The use of compressed audio formats (see relationships above) will reduce fidelity in accord with the specific encoding and settings selected.