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Need help?Convert Image to FLV Online
Turn one still image — or a whole folder of them — into a Flash Video (.flv) clip. FLV was Macromedia's streaming container from 2002 and the format that carried the first decade of online video, so the reason to make one today is almost always compatibility with something old: a legacy media server, a CMS whose uploader still validates .flv, an e-learning package built around a Flash-era player, or an archive that has to stay format-consistent.
Two things to know before you start. Adobe ended Flash Player support on 31 December 2020, and no current browser plays FLV natively — a .flv you make today opens in VLC, mpv, or anything ffmpeg-based, not in Chrome or Safari. And because a still image has no soundtrack, the output is silent; there is no audio control on this page for that reason. If the goal is simply a shareable video of a picture, Image to MP4 is the format almost everything actually plays.
How to Convert an Image to FLV
- Upload Your Image Files: Drag and drop, or click "Add Files". The converter accepts 36 image types — JPG, JPEG, JFIF, PNG, APNG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, HEIC, HEIF, TIFF, TIF, BMP, ICO, PSD, EPS, PPM, XCF, PUB, ODG, and RAW files from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Adobe DNG, Olympus, Pentax, Panasonic, Fujifilm, Hasselblad, Kodak, Epson, Leaf, Minolta, and Sigma. Drop several and they become one clip by default.
- Set Merge Strategy and Duration: Merge strategy starts on Merge images, which concatenates every upload into a single slideshow; switch to Video per image to get a separate
.flvper file. The Duration dropdown controls how long each still is held, and starts at 5 seconds per frame — it ranges from a single frame at 60 fps up to 10 seconds each. - Choose a Video Codec and Background Color: Video Codec offers Flash Video (v2), Flash Video, FLV, and H.264, and starts on FLV — the original Sorenson Spark encoder. Background Color is what fills transparent areas and any letterbox bars, and defaults to White; a couple of dozen named colours including Black are available if white is wrong for your artwork.
- Convert and Download: Click Convert and download the clip, or take a batch as a ZIP. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours. No sign-up, no watermark.
The Four Video Codecs Offered Here
| Codec in the dropdown | What it really is | Quality controls that apply | Use it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| FLV (default) | Sorenson Spark, a Flash-tuned H.263 variant from 2002 | Constant Quality only — this encoder predates constant-rate-factor encoding, so the Quality Preset row has very little effect on it | Maximum compatibility with genuinely old Flash-era players |
| H.264 | The same AVC encoder used for MP4; legal in FLV since Flash Player 9 Update 3 (2007) | Full Quality Preset, Constant Quality, and Constraint Quality support | You want the picture to actually look good and the player is newer than about 2008 |
| Flash Video | Flash Screen Video — a lossless screen-capture codec | None; it ignores rate-control settings entirely | Screenshots and UI captures where every pixel must be exact and file size does not matter |
| Flash Video (v2) | Flash Screen Video 2, the improved lossless screen codec | None; also ignores rate control | Same as above, with better compression on flat screen content |
Practical advice: pick H.264 unless something specifically requires the old codec. The Quality Preset row on this page — Highest through Lowest, starting on Very High (Recommended) — is calibrated for constant-rate-factor encoders, so it does its real work with H.264. With the default FLV codec, use the Constant Quality row instead if the output looks blockier than you expect, or accept the encoder's own defaults.
What an Image-to-Video Conversion Produces
| Aspect | Result |
|---|---|
| Audio | None — a still image has no soundtrack, so the clip is silent and the audio controls are hidden |
| Transparency | Not preserved; no video format can store an alpha channel, so transparent pixels are filled with the Background Color (white by default) |
| Letterbox bars | Filled with the same Background Color when the target resolution does not match the source aspect ratio |
| Animated GIF or APNG input | Every frame is kept at the source's own timing; the Duration and Merge controls do not apply to animated sources |
| Very large sources | Each still is normalised before encoding and capped at 4096 pixels on the long edge |
| Resolution | Starts on Keep original; Fixed Resolutions, Preset Resolutions, Width, Height, and Width x Height are all available |
Frequently Asked Questions
Will an FLV file play in my browser?
No. Every major browser dropped the plugin architecture FLV depended on, and Adobe ended Flash Player support on 31 December 2020. Desktop players built on ffmpeg — VLC, mpv, MPC-HC — still open .flv without trouble, as do most video editors. If you need something that plays on a web page, in a chat app, or on a phone, convert to MP4 or WebM instead; if you have an existing FLV to rescue, FLV to MP4 handles that direction.
Why is my FLV silent?
Because the source is a photograph, and photographs contain no audio. The converter has nothing to encode into an audio track, so it writes a video-only file and hides the audio controls entirely. That is expected behaviour rather than a failure. To put music or narration behind a still, produce the video here first and add the soundtrack in a video editor.
How long is the video, and how do I make it longer or shorter?
Each still is held for the value in the Duration dropdown, which starts at 5 seconds. Options run from a single frame at 60 fps — useful when you want a one-frame clip — through fractional-second steps up to 10 seconds per image. With Merge strategy on Merge images, total length is the sum across every file you uploaded, so ten photos at 5 seconds each gives a 50-second slideshow.
What happens to a transparent PNG or a GIF with transparency?
The transparent areas are filled with the Background Color, which defaults to white. No video format on earth stores an alpha channel, so a fill of some kind is unavoidable; the only question is which colour. White suits most logos and product shots on light pages, but if your artwork is light-coloured, switch the dropdown to Black or another of the named colours so the subject stays visible. The same colour also fills any letterbox bars introduced by a resolution change.
Can I combine several photos into one FLV slideshow?
Yes, and that is the default. Merge strategy starts on Merge images, so uploading a batch produces a single clip with each photo held for the Duration you set, in upload order. Choose Video per image if you would rather get one .flv per source file and download them as a ZIP.
What if I upload an animated GIF or APNG?
The animation is preserved. Animated sources are encoded frame by frame at their own timing, so a two-second looping GIF becomes a two-second clip rather than a five-second freeze of frame one. Because the source already carries its own timing, the Duration and Merge strategy controls do not apply to animated inputs.
Which quality setting should I use?
If you selected the H.264 codec, the Quality Preset row is the one to use — it starts on Very High (Recommended), which is close to visually lossless for a still image, and dropping toward Medium trades detail for size. If you left the codec on FLV, that preset row does very little, because Sorenson Spark has no constant-rate-factor mode; reach for Constant Quality there, or switch the codec to H.264 and use the preset properly. Note that bitrate and target-file-size modes are hidden on image sources, since there is no source bitrate to scale from.
Why does my photo look soft or blocky in the FLV?
Almost always because the default Sorenson Spark codec is doing the encoding. It is a 2002 design built for 320 × 240 streaming over dial-up-era connections, and it handles fine detail in a high-resolution photograph poorly. Switch Video Codec to H.264 and the same still will encode cleanly at the Very High preset. A secondary cause is upscaling: if you set a Fixed Resolution larger than the source, the encoder is stretching pixels that were never there.
Are my uploaded images kept after conversion?
No. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — never shared, never made public, and never watermarked. There is no sign-up. On very large batches the practical limit is upload time rather than anything in the encoding step.