Is it possible to convert mysql binlog from statement format to row format?
You cannot convert a binlog to another version, but you import its SQL as long as have mysqlbinlog for version 4.1.

Simply do the following:


Run MySQL 4.1 version of mysqlbinlog against the MySQL 4.1 binlog, saving output to stmts.sql
Install MySQL 5.x with these in my.cnf


log-bin=mysql-bin
binlog-format=ROW

Login to MySQL 5.1 and run source stmts.sql
Run SHOW BINARY LOGS;


When done, the binlogs you see should be row-based.

Give it a Try !!!

Why can't you just convert ? The BINLOG Magic Number gets displaced with later versions.

I wrote about before


Nov 30, 2012 : How can you monitor if MySQL binlog files get corrupted?
Feb 04, 2011 : MySQL master binlog corruption


Every time you restart mysql, the next empty binlog is created. Each version of MySQL has a different size:


MySQL 5.6 : 120
MySQL 5.5 : 107
MySQL 5.1 : 106
MySQL 5.0 : 98


In light of this, generating binlogs from scratch is the best way to go.

UPDATE : Thanks to Michael's Comment, you have to preload the data the binlog came from into the MySQL 5.1 Instance.