Playing FLV Files on Pocket PC

You can’t. I’m sorry, but Pocket PC as of this writing is not capable of playing FLV files nor it has a third party application that can do it. This is what I’ve discovered whey trying to play some download music video from Yoube on my XDA Zinc Pocket PC.

What Are FLV Files?

Basically, FLV files are flash video files. You’re maybe familiar with other flash video type, the .swf. Well, surprise! There are two types of flash video – FLV and SWF.

SWF are the traditional Flash videos while FLV are enhanced videos that are used in sites like Google Video or YuTube. These files (flv) from youtube and google videos can be downloaded and therefore would be very cool if we’re able to play it on our XDA Zinc! (And show off to people on the bus or MRT! :)

But like I said, we can’t play it!

Pocket PC Video Format

Windows Mobile-powered pocket pc can play many types of video files. Of course it can play .WMV files (Windows Mobile Video), .MP4 (mpeg layer 4), .MOV (quick time movie files), .MPG, .MPEG and .AVI (and probably others) but not .FLV.

Ok, But I Want play my downloaded FLV Files on my Pocket PC

How many times do I have to say it, you can’t.

Well, you can’t play it directly. You need to convert it to any other file type that Windows Mobile can read – wmv, mov, mp4, mpg, avi.

Let’s do an actual conversion. I’ve download Matchbox Twenty’s How Far We’ve Come video on Yutube (Using Video Downloaded plugin fo Firefox).

• Download a FREE video converter. This one can “Convert all video files to 3gp, mp4,psp,iPod,swf,flv,DVD,VCD… !”
• Install
• Drop the input file (FLV) in the “task list”
• On Mobile part, choose MPEG4 (mp4, best for Pocket PC)
• Convert Now

That’s it. The output file will be created in C:Program FilesTotal Video ConverterConverted directory (unless you changed it, of course)