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RichFLV is a Flash (FLV) video editor project by Benjamin Dobler built ontop of Adobe AIR and is currently in beta development.

You load an existing FLV file into RichFLV, where you can edit detailed cue points, meta data and export to a number of differing formats including MP3, FLV audio and SWF.

This AIR app really packs in some functionality. The cue points and meta data editor is really handy, I can personally think of many occasions where I could have done with that editing outside of the standard Flash Video Encoder application.

You can view individual keyframes and export a still snapshot to a JPEG or PNG file.

There is a timeline view that can be used like standard video editing software for cropping and setting in and out points. So you can split up an FLV video easily into smaller clips, likewise you can import clips to create one larger FLV file.

I found a nice little extra too, at any point you can click and drag on the video to create a PNG snapshot. Drag to you desktop and the file will be created. Try doing that in a web app!

I really enjoyed my time playing with RichFLV it’s fast and effective at editing FLV files especially for inclusion in Flash projects where you need cue point events.

Design and Experience eye

The dark theme colours suite the application well while keeping focus on the task in hand. The UI layout would be familiar to users of other timeline based video tools.

When resized the app results in predictable resizing although the view became quite pixelated when fullscreened on my MacBook Pro.

There are menu options to toggle the panels on and off. After looking closely there are small clickable arrows to the right and bottom that open or close the associated panel. I think these could be moved to the inside where the arrow direction and the perceived action would have improved meaning.

Another request for any future release would be the ability to click on the timeline to reposition the playhead. You can currently drag the playhead to a new position, but clicking would allow more flexibility.

Just for fun, integrating the functionality of AIRTube (previously reviewed here), to enable downloading of YouTube videos for local editing, would be a great addition.

Technical eye

I’m not sure of the exact Adobe technology used to build RichFLV but looking at the package and the UI my best guess would be Adobe Flex 3.