FLV 대 SWF

Flash, uses 2 types of files to deliver video, a player file, and a video file.  The video file, a flv mp4 or f4v is played back by the player, a swf file, with the flash web browser plugin.  The SWF file contains the frame and player controls that the viewer interacts with.  You can think of the swf as the player you typically see embedded on web pages, while the flv, mp4 or f4v is the actual video file that is loaded and plays.