How To Play FLVs In Media Player Classic (Including Fast Forwarding), Or Forget You, VLC
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1. I want to download and play FLVs on my computer.
2. I don't want to use some crappy FLV player that only plays FLVs and has an interface from either 1995 or 2034 – I want to use my favorite player, like Media Player Classic.
3. Yes, VLC plays FLVs but it can't fast forward or rewind them. Yes, mplayer plays FLVs but I want a GUI. Yes, mplayer supports GUIs but they all pretty much suck. I don't particularly like VLC's or mplayer's interface – want to fight about it?
Enter the latest version of ffdshow. ffdshow is a decoding filter – think of it as a set of codecs for your media players. It supports FLV1, FLV4, H263, On2 VP6, H264, WMV, DiVX, XViD, and anything you fancy. I tried playing FLVs encoded to FLV4 and VP6, and both worked great in MPC, including fast forwarding and going full screen. Just download and install it, and everything will magically work – no reboot necessary.
As a bonus, here's a handy screenshot that I took of everything ffdshow supports:
Artem Russakovskii is a San Francisco programmer, blogger, and future millionaire (that last part is in the works). Follow Artem on Twitter (@ArtemR) or subscribe to the RSS feed.
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beer planet is a blog about technology, programming, computers, and geek life. It is run by Artem Russakovskii - a local San Francisco geek who currently works at 
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I second the bad GUI of VLC, although i had to use it as it was the only player for every extension.
The strange thing is that i have ffdshow installed but i didn't know it could help with other players.
Thanks for the tip.
Jason, VLC has its own set of codecs but MPC and other players usually rely on system wide ones.