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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Jack Schofield

FLV to go - on a GoGear

I bought a Philips GoGear MP3 player with ArcSoft download software. It says I can't download YouTube videos because I have not got an FLV codec.
Alkesh Patel

The FLV codec is used to decode and play movies in Adobe's Flash Video format. Installing a codec such as PlayFLV should enable you to play FLV movies in Windows Media Player, and FLV codecs are generally included in the codec packs for Media Player Classic and VLC. However, this won't make the movie play on the GoGear, which uses conversion software on the PC to translate movies into the specific video format(s) the MP3 player can handle. You will have to check the manual, but it may only support Microsoft's WMV format.

You can, of course, download many YouTube files manually. If the name appears as get_video in the Save As dialogue box, you should change this to something more sensible (eg Sonim-Asunaro_Ginga.flv) before saving the file. Once you have the FLV file, you can convert it yourself using a free program such as Super ©). Alternatively, you could use Wondershare's $25 YouTube Downloader, which will convert FLV files to a number of formats. Either way, choose a format that your GoGear can actually play: converting the file twice will reduce the quality.
Note: This item appeared in print on Thursday 26 March, but last week I was away on a computer-free holiday....

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