Free online USM to F4V converter

What the USM format is

USM is CRI Middleware’s Sofdec video container, used extensively in games for cutscenes, menus, trailers, and other pre-rendered footage. Games for consoles and Windows commonly package USM files with H.264 or MPEG-4 video and CRI ADX or HCA audio; some files are encrypted or interleaved for game playback. You typically encounter them inside a game installation, disc image, or extracted archive rather than as ordinary camera or editing files.

FFmpeg generally cannot open an encrypted CRI USM directly. A CRI-aware extractor or decrypter is normally required first. Use only files you are authorized to extract and convert; game assets may be protected by copyright or encryption.

What the F4V format is

F4V is Adobe’s ISO Base Media-based Flash Video container. It normally stores H.264/AVC video with AAC audio, unlike the older FLV container’s common support for Sorenson Spark and VP6. F4V can be useful when a legacy Flash-based player, archive, or application specifically requires an .f4v file.

F4V is a legacy format: Adobe Flash Player is discontinued, and current browsers do not provide native Flash playback. MP4 with H.264 and AAC is usually more compatible unless the receiving application explicitly requires F4V.

How to actually convert USM to F4V

1. Back up the original USM. Work on a copy because extraction tools may create several intermediate streams.
2. Extract the USM streams. Use a CRI-aware utility such as VGMToolbox’s USM-related tools or a title-compatible USM extractor/decrypter. Select the file, choose deinterleaving or extraction, and supply a decryption key when the game requires one. The result may include an H.264 elementary stream, an MPEG-4 video stream, WAV/PCM audio, ADX audio, or HCA audio.
3. Convert proprietary audio first. FFmpeg cannot decode every ADX or HCA variant. Use a compatible CRI audio decoder to produce WAV or another FFmpeg-readable file, then verify that the extracted audio duration matches the video.
4. Remux H.264 video and encode AAC audio. If extraction produced H.264 video and WAV audio, run:

ffmpeg -f h264 -i video.h264 -i audio.wav -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0 -c:v copy -c:a aac -b:a 192k -f f4v output.f4v

The -c:v copy option preserves already-compatible H.264 without another lossy video encode. If the extracted video is not H.264, encode it instead:

ffmpeg -i video.m4v -i audio.wav -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0 -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 18 -preset medium -c:a aac -b:a 192k -f f4v output.f4v

Replace the filenames with the streams produced by the extractor. If the source has no audio, omit the second input, its -map option, and the audio codec settings:

ffmpeg -i video.h264 -c:v copy -an -f f4v output.f4v

For a no-installation option, upload the file to the converter on 101convert.com and choose F4V as the output format. Encrypted or unsupported USM variants may need local extraction before the resulting video can be converted online.

Quality, compatibility, and limitations

USM timing can depend on separate audio and video stream metadata. After conversion, check lip synchronization, frame rate, duration, and seeking at several points. If audio begins late or ends early, the extractor may have dropped padding or the source may use an offset that must be corrected before muxing.

Copying H.264 avoids video quality loss, but F4V playback still depends on the target application supporting the particular AVC profile, level, frame rate, and AAC configuration. Re-encoding with libx264 improves compatibility at the cost of another generation of compression. F4V creation does not remove encryption from the original asset unless the extraction stage successfully decrypts it.