BMP to FLV Converter

Converting a BMP to FLV: What This Page Covers

A .bmp is a single still picture — a Windows device-independent bitmap, stored as a file header plus a pixel array with no motion and no sound. A .flv is a Flash Video container, so this is not a re-save: the converter builds a short video that holds your one bitmap on screen for a length you choose and writes it as a silent, motionless clip. This page covers the steps, the two controls that actually change the result (Duration and Merge strategy), which codec the FLV container gets, and an honest read on whether FLV is the right target at all.

How to Convert BMP to FLV

1. Upload Your BMP File: Drag your .bmp onto the page or click "+ Add Files" to browse. Several bitmaps can be queued at once, and the same settings apply to all of them.
2. Set the Duration: Under Image Duration, the Duration dropdown decides how long the still is held — from a single frame (1/60s, 1/30s, 1/24s) up to 10 seconds per frame, with "5 seconds per frame" preselected. With one image, that is the whole clip length.
3. Choose Merge Strategy, Background Color, and Resolution: Merge strategy starts on Merge images, which joins every uploaded bitmap into one clip; switch to Video per image for a separate .flv per file. Background Color (White by default, 25 named colors) fills any frame area the picture does not cover, and Video resolution starts on "Keep original".
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert" and save the .flv. No sign-up, no watermark. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours.

Walk-through: Duration and Merge Strategy Are the Two Levers

Almost every familiar video control has nothing to act on here. There is one frame, so there is no motion to smooth, no scene changes to spend bits on, and no source bitrate or runtime for a size target to work from — which is exactly why the file-size and bitrate targeting modes do not appear on this page at all. What is left is quality-based compression, and two structural choices:

• Duration sets the clip length. One bitmap at the default 5 seconds per frame gives a 5-second FLV. Pick 1/60s when something downstream only needs a valid video file and length is irrelevant — that is essentially a one-frame clip and the smallest possible output.
• Merge strategy decides the file count. Left on Merge images, ten bitmaps become one clip roughly 50 seconds long at the default duration (10 x 5s), each picture shown in upload order with no cross-fades or transitions. Video per image gives you ten separate .flv files of five seconds each instead.
• Background Color only shows up when shapes disagree. Keep Video resolution on "Keep original" and the frame matches the bitmap, so no background is visible. Force a 16:9 preset onto a 4:3 scan and the leftover bars are painted in the background color — white unless you change it.
• Quality Preset trades sharpness for size. "Very High (Recommended)" is preselected; a single held frame re-encoded at a lower preset shows compression artifacts on text and line art long before it shows them on photographs.

Video Codec Choices for an FLV Output

FLV Status at a Glance

Common Errors and How to Fix Them

• "The FLV won't play" — Browsers dropped Flash after its end of life, so nothing plays .flv inline on the web. Open it in VLC or mpv, which read the container without Flash, or convert to BMP to MP4 if it needs to play in a browser.
• "There is no sound" — Expected. A bitmap stores pixels, not audio, so a still-to-video conversion has nothing to encode into an audio track. Add music or narration afterwards in a video editor.
• "Nothing moves" — Also expected. Motion comes from frames that differ from each other; one bitmap has exactly one frame. A slideshow of several different bitmaps is the closest this conversion gets.
• "The picture looks softer than the bitmap" — The default FLV codec is lossy and the source was not compressed at all, so some softening is inherent. Keep Video resolution on "Keep original", stay on the "Very High" preset, or switch the codec to H.264.
• "I uploaded five bitmaps and got one file" — Merge strategy is on Merge images. Switch it to Video per image.
• "Upscaling did not add detail" — Choosing a 4K preset stretches one frame across more pixels; it cannot invent detail the bitmap never had.

When This Doesn't Work

FLV is a legacy delivery format, and the honest use for a BMP-to-FLV clip is narrow: feeding a static splash frame, slate or placeholder into an un-migrated Flash-era pipeline that will not accept a raw bitmap. If what you actually want is a smaller, more portable picture, wrapping it in a video container helps nothing — BMP to PNG keeps every pixel and is far smaller than the bitmap, and BMP to JPG is smaller still for photographs. If you need a still-as-video that plays today, BMP to MP4 is the better target, and existing Flash clips are better off through FLV to MP4.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my converted FLV silent and motionless?

Because the source is a single still image. A BMP has no audio track to carry over and no second frame to animate, so the conversion can only hold that one picture on screen for the duration you set. The result is a fixed-length clip that plays but never changes. Sound and movement have to be added later in a video editor — there is nothing in the bitmap for the converter to work from.

How long will the FLV clip be?

Exactly the Duration you choose. The dropdown runs from a single frame at 1/60s up to 10 seconds per frame and starts on "5 seconds per frame", so one bitmap left alone gives a five-second clip. Because Merge strategy starts on Merge images, uploading several bitmaps produces one clip whose length is roughly the per-image duration multiplied by the number of files.

Which video codec does the FLV output use by default?

The FLV codec — the classic Flash video codec, an H.263 derivative — is preselected. The Video Codec list in the advanced options also offers H.264, which the FLV container supports and which modern players handle better, plus the two Flash-era screen-video codecs for tools that specifically require them. No audio codec matters here, because a still image supplies no audio to encode.

Is FLV still usable now that Flash is gone?

Only in legacy contexts. Adobe stopped supporting Flash Player on December 31, 2020 and began blocking Flash content on January 12, 2021, and browsers removed the plugin, so .flv no longer plays on the web. The container itself is not broken — VLC, mpv and ffmpeg-based tools still open it — but there is no reason to author new FLV files for general distribution.

Will converting a BMP to FLV improve the image or make it HD?

No. A BMP is normally stored with no compression at all, so it already holds the most detail that exists; encoding it into video can only match or lose fidelity, never add it. Selecting a larger resolution preset stretches the same frame onto a bigger canvas without creating new detail. For maximum fidelity, keep the picture as a picture — BMP to PNG is lossless.

Why is there no "target file size" option on this page?

Because size targeting needs a source bitrate and a runtime to work from, and a still image has neither. For an image source the converter keeps the quality-based modes only, so Quality Preset is the practical control: lower presets shrink the clip, and shorter durations shrink it further because fewer frames are encoded.

My bitmap is 4:3 and the clip has white bars — how do I fix it?

Set Video resolution back to "Keep original" so the video frame matches the bitmap's own dimensions and nothing is left over. If a fixed frame size is required by whatever consumes the file, the leftover area has to be filled with something — that is what Background Color controls, with white preselected and 25 named colors available.

How large can the BMP be, and how are my files handled?

Uncompressed bitmaps get big quickly — a 1920x1080 24-bit BMP stores 5,760 bytes per pixel row and about 6.2 MB in total — so the practical limit is upload size and time rather than anything about the conversion itself. Files travel over an encrypted connection, are converted on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours. There is no sign-up, no watermark, and files are never shared or made public.