OT- Flash to MPG (or other video format) converter

(Only relation to SONAR here is that the original song in the animated video
was recorded in SONAR.)

Anybody know of a good, preferably free converter to take an SWF format
Flash video, including the audio portion of it, and convert it to MPG
format, or perhaps AVI or some other common video format as a second choice?
I have found a few shareware possibilities, but the least expensive of those
that seems to work is Moyea SWF to MPEG Converter at $39.95. I really hate
to put out that kind of money for something I'm only likely to use once for
a single video.

The situation is that a guy over in Beijing did an animated music video to
one of my songs, and it is only in an interactive Flash format (only
interaction is to start it and possibly restart it at the end, which the
shareware converters I've tried out thus far seem to handle by just
automatically starting the video, which is fine). I want to convert it to
something I can upload to YouTube, preferably MPG. (I can probably convert
from AVI and some other high quality video formats to MPG if something can
get it from SWF to AVI, but so far all the free converters I've tried that
claim to handle SWF as a source format don't seem to work for this one,
perhaps due to the interactive part?)

Rick
--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================

http://www.avi-swf-convert.com/default.asp free but only gets the video no
sound yet.... get you there halfway? LOL

http://www.geovid.com/Flash to Video Conversion/ They don't say what
the limitations are (if any) on a trial of the three products

http://www.anvsoft.com/download-flash-to-3gp-converter.html Is also a trial
but no info on limitations
http://www.anvsoft.com/download-flash-to-ipod-converter.html same here

http://www.axaramedia.com/FlashSolutions/FlashVideoConverter/ This one chops
up the save on trial, but features look good $30

Sorry was hoping to find you a free one.
http://media-convert.com/convert/index.php won't take SWF as input (pretty
sure) but this is a good one to keep on hand, it is an excellent online free
video conversion utility for many formats.
--
Sue Morton

"Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
news:...
> (Only relation to SONAR here is that the original song in the animated
> video was recorded in SONAR.)
>
> Anybody know of a good, preferably free converter to take an SWF format
> Flash video, including the audio portion of it, and convert it to MPG
> format, or perhaps AVI or some other common video format as a second
> choice? I have found a few shareware possibilities, but the least
> expensive of those that seems to work is Moyea SWF to MPEG Converter at
> $39.95. I really hate to put out that kind of money for something I'm
> only likely to use once for a single video.
>
> The situation is that a guy over in Beijing did an animated music video to
> one of my songs, and it is only in an interactive Flash format (only
> interaction is to start it and possibly restart it at the end, which the
> shareware converters I've tried out thus far seem to handle by just
> automatically starting the video, which is fine). I want to convert it to
> something I can upload to YouTube, preferably MPG. (I can probably
> convert from AVI and some other high quality video formats to MPG if
> something can get it from SWF to AVI, but so far all the free converters
> I've tried that claim to handle SWF as a source format don't seem to work
> for this one, perhaps due to the interactive part?)
>
> Rick
> --
> =======================================
> Rick Paul
> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
> Web: www.RickPaul.info
> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
> =======================================
>
>

This works great and it's free! Thanks to Glennbo for this one.

http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html




"Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
news:...
> (Only relation to SONAR here is that the original song in the animated
> video was recorded in SONAR.)
>
> Anybody know of a good, preferably free converter to take an SWF format
> Flash video, including the audio portion of it, and convert it to MPG
> format, or perhaps AVI or some other common video format as a second
> choice? I have found a few shareware possibilities, but the least
> expensive of those that seems to work is Moyea SWF to MPEG Converter at
> $39.95. I really hate to put out that kind of money for something I'm
> only likely to use once for a single video.
>
> The situation is that a guy over in Beijing did an animated music video to
> one of my songs, and it is only in an interactive Flash format (only
> interaction is to start it and possibly restart it at the end, which the
> shareware converters I've tried out thus far seem to handle by just
> automatically starting the video, which is fine). I want to convert it to
> something I can upload to YouTube, preferably MPG. (I can probably
> convert from AVI and some other high quality video formats to MPG if
> something can get it from SWF to AVI, but so far all the free converters
> I've tried that claim to handle SWF as a source format don't seem to work
> for this one, perhaps due to the interactive part?)
>
> Rick
> --
> =======================================
> Rick Paul
> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
> Web: www.RickPaul.info
> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
> =======================================
>
>

I haven't had much luck with it for my conversions, so I forgot about that
one. Maybe it does the SWF-to-? correctly. Thanks for the reminder.
--
Sue Morton

"none" <> wrote in message
news:U5FZi.57891$...
> This works great and it's free! Thanks to Glennbo for this one.
>
> http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
>
>
>
>
> "Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> (Only relation to SONAR here is that the original song in the animated
>> video was recorded in SONAR.)
>>
>> Anybody know of a good, preferably free converter to take an SWF format
>> Flash video, including the audio portion of it, and convert it to MPG
>> format, or perhaps AVI or some other common video format as a second
>> choice? I have found a few shareware possibilities, but the least
>> expensive of those that seems to work is Moyea SWF to MPEG Converter at
>> $39.95. I really hate to put out that kind of money for something I'm
>> only likely to use once for a single video.
>>
>> The situation is that a guy over in Beijing did an animated music video
>> to one of my songs, and it is only in an interactive Flash format (only
>> interaction is to start it and possibly restart it at the end, which the
>> shareware converters I've tried out thus far seem to handle by just
>> automatically starting the video, which is fine). I want to convert it
>> to something I can upload to YouTube, preferably MPG. (I can probably
>> convert from AVI and some other high quality video formats to MPG if
>> something can get it from SWF to AVI, but so far all the free converters
>> I've tried that claim to handle SWF as a source format don't seem to work
>> for this one, perhaps due to the interactive part?)
>>
>> Rick
>> --
>> =======================================
>> Rick Paul
>> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
>> Web: www.RickPaul.info
>> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
>> =======================================
>>
>>
>
>

"Sue Morton" <> wrote in message
news:qJFZi.7892$...


>I haven't had much luck with it for my conversions, so I forgot about that
>one. Maybe it does the SWF-to-? correctly. Thanks for the reminder.
> --
> Sue Morton

Hmmmm... seems you're right, Sue. At least with the files I tried. Just
tried it with an .swf to .mpg and .avi conversion on several different files
and kept getting an error message. I have had success converting .flv to
..avi or .wmv and .avi to .3gp.

"none" <> wrote in message news:v5HZi.4437$...
>
> "Sue Morton" <> wrote in message news:qJFZi.7892$...
>
>
>>I haven't had much luck with it for my conversions, so I forgot about that one. Maybe it does the SWF-to-? correctly. Thanks for
>>the reminder.
>> --
>> Sue Morton
>
> Hmmmm... seems you're right, Sue. At least with the files I tried. Just tried it with an .swf to .mpg and .avi conversion on
> several different files and kept getting an error message. I have had success converting .flv to .avi or .wmv and .avi to .3gp.


..swf are quite often "protected" files and when they are protected, aren't even openable by the native
flash program after they're "published" as protected, out of flash.

Thanks, Sue. I'll have to check through these later tonight when I have
more time.

I think I already tried the one with no sound, not realizing at first that
it had no sound, but I don't think it worked on my file anyway. Getting
halfway might not be the end of the world as I might be able to use SONAR to
marry that with my original recording and capture the audio from the Flash
file another way (relatively simple to do with my audio card's mixer).

I know I tried some of the ones you mentioned, but there might be a few I
didn't. Most (all?) of the trial limitations for the three to five I tried
involve stamping the thing with a logo or "demo version" watermark. At
least trying them that way gives some idea of the quality they are likely to
generate, though on at least one it was hard to say whether maybe the way
they were doing the watermark might be making the rest of the video shaky.

It seems like one of the complications of working with an SWF file is that
the application actually has to do a capture of it. Several of them visibly
put it up on the screen while doing that, though at least one didn't. Even
that one, though, was playing the thing in real time behind the scenes, or
at least seemed to be based on the time it was taking and the frame counts.

Rick

--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================



"Sue Morton" <> wrote in message
news:AjEZi.21434$...
> http://www.avi-swf-convert.com/default.asp free but only gets the video
> no sound yet.... get you there halfway? LOL
>
> http://www.geovid.com/Flash to Video Conversion/ They don't say what
> the limitations are (if any) on a trial of the three products
>
> http://www.anvsoft.com/download-flash-to-3gp-converter.html Is also a
> trial but no info on limitations
> http://www.anvsoft.com/download-flash-to-ipod-converter.html same here
>
> http://www.axaramedia.com/FlashSolutions/FlashVideoConverter/ This one
> chops up the save on trial, but features look good $30
>
> Sorry was hoping to find you a free one.
> http://media-convert.com/convert/index.php won't take SWF as input
> (pretty sure) but this is a good one to keep on hand, it is an excellent
> online free video conversion utility for many formats.
> --
> Sue Morton
>
> "Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> (Only relation to SONAR here is that the original song in the animated
>> video was recorded in SONAR.)
>>
>> Anybody know of a good, preferably free converter to take an SWF format
>> Flash video, including the audio portion of it, and convert it to MPG
>> format, or perhaps AVI or some other common video format as a second
>> choice? I have found a few shareware possibilities, but the least
>> expensive of those that seems to work is Moyea SWF to MPEG Converter at
>> $39.95. I really hate to put out that kind of money for something I'm
>> only likely to use once for a single video.
>>
>> The situation is that a guy over in Beijing did an animated music video
>> to one of my songs, and it is only in an interactive Flash format (only
>> interaction is to start it and possibly restart it at the end, which the
>> shareware converters I've tried out thus far seem to handle by just
>> automatically starting the video, which is fine). I want to convert it
>> to something I can upload to YouTube, preferably MPG. (I can probably
>> convert from AVI and some other high quality video formats to MPG if
>> something can get it from SWF to AVI, but so far all the free converters
>> I've tried that claim to handle SWF as a source format don't seem to work
>> for this one, perhaps due to the interactive part?)
>>
>> Rick
>> --
>> =======================================
>> Rick Paul
>> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
>> Web: www.RickPaul.info
>> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
>> =======================================
>>
>>
>
>

Thanks, this is definitely one I haven't tried yet, so I'll have to give it
a shot. I noted the other messages below about problems with it, but I
suppose it doesn't hurt to try. Some of the others that were supposed to
work also did not, giving error messages, so this wouldn't be the first if
it does.

Rick

--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================

"none" <> wrote in message
news:U5FZi.57891$...
> This works great and it's free! Thanks to Glennbo for this one.
>
> http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
>
>
>
>
> "Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> (Only relation to SONAR here is that the original song in the animated
>> video was recorded in SONAR.)
>>
>> Anybody know of a good, preferably free converter to take an SWF format
>> Flash video, including the audio portion of it, and convert it to MPG
>> format, or perhaps AVI or some other common video format as a second
>> choice? I have found a few shareware possibilities, but the least
>> expensive of those that seems to work is Moyea SWF to MPEG Converter at
>> $39.95. I really hate to put out that kind of money for something I'm
>> only likely to use once for a single video.
>>
>> The situation is that a guy over in Beijing did an animated music video
>> to one of my songs, and it is only in an interactive Flash format (only
>> interaction is to start it and possibly restart it at the end, which the
>> shareware converters I've tried out thus far seem to handle by just
>> automatically starting the video, which is fine). I want to convert it
>> to something I can upload to YouTube, preferably MPG. (I can probably
>> convert from AVI and some other high quality video formats to MPG if
>> something can get it from SWF to AVI, but so far all the free converters
>> I've tried that claim to handle SWF as a source format don't seem to work
>> for this one, perhaps due to the interactive part?)
>>
>> Rick
>> --
>> =======================================
>> Rick Paul
>> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
>> Web: www.RickPaul.info
>> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
>> =======================================
>>
>>
>
>

"Steve Karl" <> wrote in message
news:niHZi.1746$VB6.1626@trnddc06...
> .swf are quite often "protected" files and when they are protected, aren't
> even openable by the native
> flash program after they're "published" as protected, out of flash.

I don't think that is the case with my file, but I really don't know the
technical side of what he did with. Also, there were a few layers of
indirection as the guy who was producing it wasn't the actual animator.

All the converters I tried thus far that seemed to work in their demo
version mode also seemed to capture the video (and perhaps the audio?) by
running the thing and doing a capture under software control. One of them
that wouldn't capture it (didn't give any error message to tell me why,
unfortunately), was nevertheless able to play it. At least one of the
others wouldn't even load it. Seems like it must at least be a challenging
thing to do based on the types of results.

Rick
--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================

Well, this one didn't work. It thinks my SWF file is bad, be it not using
the FLV1 codec (i.e. and using some codec it doesn't support) or corrupted
or some such thing. I'm pretty sure it's not a bad file as it plays just
fine and some of the other non-freeware converters could convert it, so
maybe the unsupported codec thing is what it is.

Man, I have to say it took me awhile to figure out where the download
software is for this one. They seem to really want you to read in detail
about the thing, then hear results of it's working, and all kinds of other
stuff, before you finally get to the buried link on something like the third
or fourth page.

Next will be going through Sue's list to see which ones I may not have tried
already. I've also thought about just trying a generic video capture from
the screen program along with capturing the audio then marrying those back
together as a backup possibility. Not sure how well that would work,
though.

Rick
--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================

"Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Thanks, this is definitely one I haven't tried yet, so I'll have to give
> it a shot. I noted the other messages below about problems with it, but I
> suppose it doesn't hurt to try. Some of the others that were supposed to
> work also did not, giving error messages, so this wouldn't be the first if
> it does.
>
> Rick
>
> --
> =======================================
> Rick Paul
> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
> Web: www.RickPaul.info
> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
> =======================================
>
> "none" <> wrote in message
> news:U5FZi.57891$...
>> This works great and it's free! Thanks to Glennbo for this one.
>>
>> http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
>> news:...
>>> (Only relation to SONAR here is that the original song in the animated
>>> video was recorded in SONAR.)
>>>
>>> Anybody know of a good, preferably free converter to take an SWF format
>>> Flash video, including the audio portion of it, and convert it to MPG
>>> format, or perhaps AVI or some other common video format as a second
>>> choice? I have found a few shareware possibilities, but the least
>>> expensive of those that seems to work is Moyea SWF to MPEG Converter at
>>> $39.95. I really hate to put out that kind of money for something I'm
>>> only likely to use once for a single video.
>>>
>>> The situation is that a guy over in Beijing did an animated music video
>>> to one of my songs, and it is only in an interactive Flash format (only
>>> interaction is to start it and possibly restart it at the end, which the
>>> shareware converters I've tried out thus far seem to handle by just
>>> automatically starting the video, which is fine). I want to convert it
>>> to something I can upload to YouTube, preferably MPG. (I can probably
>>> convert from AVI and some other high quality video formats to MPG if
>>> something can get it from SWF to AVI, but so far all the free converters
>>> I've tried that claim to handle SWF as a source format don't seem to
>>> work for this one, perhaps due to the interactive part?)
>>>
>>> Rick
>>> --
>>> =======================================
>>> Rick Paul
>>> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
>>> Web: www.RickPaul.info
>>> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
>>> =======================================
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

Just in case anyone else is interested in results, here they are:

"Sue Morton" <> wrote in message
news:AjEZi.21434$...
> http://www.avi-swf-convert.com/default.asp free but only gets the video
> no sound yet.... get you there halfway? LOL

When I try to convert, this one finishes in a split second, putting a red X
over the file icon. No error message or anything, nor is any conversion
actually done. I guess it didn't like my file. ;-)

> http://www.geovid.com/Flash to Video Conversion/ They don't say what
> the limitations are (if any) on a trial of the three products

This one made you interact with the thing to start the video (like the
normal Flash does), rather than just automatically converting the part of
the video that plays itself like some of the other converters that worked
did. After that, though, it did a respectable job on the conversion, though
taking a very long time and temporarily creating a 1.9GB file (the resulting
MPG was only about 43MB). It seemed like it may have done something
different than some of the others on the audio, as the audio volume seemed
lower on this conversion than others. This one is quite expensive,
though -- $99.95 for a personal license. As with the others, the trial
version puts a logo in there, floating around the screen. I might add that
it crashed on me a few times in the course of trying it various times with
different settings when I'd messed up on settings and gotten things started,
or not known I had to interact with the SWF video.

> http://www.anvsoft.com/download-flash-to-3gp-converter.html Is also a
> trial but no info on limitations
> http://www.anvsoft.com/download-flash-to-ipod-converter.html same here

They have a series of products that does special purpose conversions, such
as for iPod, PSP, and a few others. The first one you linked to was for 3GP
format for certain types of cellphones. I tried the second one for the
iPod, which creates an MP4 file playable in QuickTime on the PC, but not on
Media Player. It wouldn't let me change the size (assumedly since it's
hardcoded for iPod screen dimensions), and it did the watermark thing for
the demo, too. Also needed interactivity, but otherwise did a decent
conversion job. The nicest thing about this one is that the price is lowest
of the non-freeware ones (and so far, I haven't found a freeware one that
actually worked on my video). If I don't find something else, it might be
worth seeing if I can later convert from the MP4 file to MPG with a freeware
converter and still keep good enough quality.

> http://www.axaramedia.com/FlashSolutions/FlashVideoConverter/ This one
> chops up the save on trial, but features look good $30

Hmm, this is a strange one. The marketing info on this talks about being
able to use it to convert from SWF and FLV files to lots of other things,
but it won't accept SWF files in its source files box at all. It's almost
like it downloaded the wrong program, except that the title bar of the
program has the right name. Odd!

> Sorry was hoping to find you a free one.
> http://media-convert.com/convert/index.php won't take SWF as input
> (pretty sure) but this is a good one to keep on hand, it is an excellent
> online free video conversion utility for many formats.

That does look useful. Oh well....

Others I tried included:

Moyea SWF to Video Converter Standard
(http://www.flash-video-mx.com/swf_to_avi_std/download/): Did a respectable
job. I was thinking last night it was $39.95, but looking today it shows
$49.95. :-(

CinemaForge (http://www.download.com/3000-13631_4-10763319.html): It tries
briefly, then says it doesn't support compressed SWF format.

WinAVI Video Converter
(http://www.winavi.com/en/video-converter/video-converter.htm): This did
convert it, but did a notably crappy job. I'm not sure if it was just a
crappy converter, or whether the way they did their watermark just made
everything blink or something, but the image looked much more unstable with
this one than with the others that did work. And I'm not really interested
in paying $30 to see if it was just their watermark that made it crappy. ;-(

Amor SWF to Video Converter
(http://www.download3k.com/Web-Authoring/Flash-Utilities/Download-Amor-SWF-to-Video-Converter.html):
This also seemed to do a reasonable job, though it make a significantly
larger MPG file (about 88MB versus 40-45MB for others), and didn't seem to
have noticeably better quality. Another $49 option.

I think I probably tried a few others that didn't work, too.

Ah well, I may try some kind of video capture possibility before I give up.
I don't think my wife will like me spending $50 for this somehow. :-(

Rick
--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================

Oh Lordy... your wife probably doesn't like that you've spent, what, 2 days
on this either? LOL

Yeah the 3GP and MP4 ones I posted to you, I was thinking that if one of
them did a good enough job, you could convert from THAT format to something
else, exactly as you said.

Now I'm wondering: I did a search for SWF to (AVI, MPG, etc.) but I didn't
really look for SWF to say FLV or Google Video... hmmm? If you uploaded the
thing to YouTube or Google (do you HAVE to publish it too? Dunno, have
never done it) if they take SWF maybe you could then use the FLV or or
Google video and get it converted to something else you can use... just a
random stray grey matter neuron firing there
--
Sue Morton

"Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Just in case anyone else is interested in results, here they are:

"Sue Morton" <> wrote in message
news:VaZZi.59365$...
> Oh Lordy... your wife probably doesn't like that you've spent, what, 2
> days on this either? LOL

Well, actually just a few hours at night, split across two nights, and she
was already occupied doing other things or sleeping. For better or worse,
I'm not in a position where time=money, or I'd probably have been able to
justify buying something really quickly. ;-) It's also impossible to
quantify any potential benefits of getting the video out there. It might
well end up being "just for fun", even if my (extremely) longshot hope is
that it might go viral and result in a bunch of download sales for the song
on iTunes, Amazon, and the like.

> Now I'm wondering: I did a search for SWF to (AVI, MPG, etc.) but I
> didn't really look for SWF to say FLV or Google Video... hmmm? If you
> uploaded the thing to YouTube or Google (do you HAVE to publish it too?
> Dunno, have never done it) if they take SWF maybe you could then use the
> FLV or or Google video and get it converted to something else you can
> use... just a random stray grey matter neuron firing there

I haven't checked Google, which might be a good idea, but YouTube doesn't
deal with SWF format. The formats they claim to accept are .WMV, .AVI, .MOV,
and .MPG. They recommend against WMV on quality grounds, and I know from
experience (my current video on there at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLT4OgPvInU) that AVI is a bit dicey due to the
tradeoffs between file size and quality (they have a limit of 100MB for
files size).

Just looking back at their page on format recommendations
(www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=55744&topic=10523), I
actually notice they are suggesting MPEG4 (DivX, Xvid, SVQ3) at 320x240,
with 64k Mono MP3 Audio. But it seems to me that might be contradicting the
above-mentioned part of the note on file formats they accept, because I
believe (not sure, though) that MPEG4 files get an MP4 extension, not an MPG
extension. (That's definitely true of what came out of that iPod converter
you'd mentioned, and I just, to see what would happen, tried changing the
file extention to MPG, which then associates it with Windows Media Player,
rather than QuickTime, on my system, and it wouldn't play in WMP. Of
course, even if MP4 file format would have been okay, that converter didn't
allow changing dimensions from their fixed settings for iPod.)

Rick
--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================

Rats it was just a stray thought, albeit a hopeful one. AOL video? From
their FAQ, no SWF support but still thinking if you can get it into one of
the other formats?

(from AOL Video FAQ)
*****************************************
What video formats can be uploaded?

The VideoEgg publisher, which powers the uploading functionality, draws
dynamically on a variety of resources, including the specific codecs
installed on your computer, to decode the video you want to publish. As a
result, there is some variation from computer to computer with respect to
the videos that can be uploaded. Generally speaking, however, the VideoEgg
Publisher should be able to read the video inside most consumer formats,
including:

..3gp
..3gp2
..avi
..dv
..mpg
..mpg4
..mov
..mqv
..wmv

Note: At this time, the VideoEgg uploader does not support MPEG-2 movies.
These movies are most commonly found on DVDs.
*****************************************

It does say 'most consumer formats, including'... probably another
longshot....
--
Sue Morton

"Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I haven't checked Google, which might be a good idea, but YouTube doesn't
> deal with SWF format. The formats they claim to accept are .WMV, .AVI,
> .MOV, and .MPG. They recommend against WMV on quality grounds, and I know
> from experience (my current video on there at
> www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLT4OgPvInU) that AVI is a bit dicey due to the
> tradeoffs between file size and quality (they have a limit of 100MB for
> files size).
>
> Just looking back at their page on format recommendations
> (www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=55744&topic=10523), I
> actually notice they are suggesting MPEG4 (DivX, Xvid, SVQ3) at 320x240,
> with 64k Mono MP3 Audio. But it seems to me that might be contradicting
> the

Yeah, the rub is in converting from SWF, to most any other format, in the
first place. I just checked the info at Google Videos for their format info
(http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=26562&topic=11462),
and they explicitly say, "please note that we currently do not accept Flash
files."

Actually, the other thing I'm thinking about is the possibility of any
YouTube-like sites that may host Flash files. I don't even know if such
sites exist, but, if they did, I could always use that sort of thing. Just
a quick search turned up KillSomeTime.com, but even the home page there
seems littered with sex ads, so maybe not that one. ;-) But maybe there may
be others. Yet another possible avenue to investigate tonight or next
chance I get.

Rick
--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================


"Sue Morton" <> wrote in message
news:CS0_i.69248$...
> Rats it was just a stray thought, albeit a hopeful one. AOL video? From
> their FAQ, no SWF support but still thinking if you can get it into one of
> the other formats?
>
> (from AOL Video FAQ)
> *****************************************
> What video formats can be uploaded?
>
> The VideoEgg publisher, which powers the uploading functionality, draws
> dynamically on a variety of resources, including the specific codecs
> installed on your computer, to decode the video you want to publish. As a
> result, there is some variation from computer to computer with respect to
> the videos that can be uploaded. Generally speaking, however, the VideoEgg
> Publisher should be able to read the video inside most consumer formats,
> including:
>
> .3gp
> .3gp2
> .avi
> .dv
> .mpg
> .mpg4
> .mov
> .mqv
> .wmv
>
> Note: At this time, the VideoEgg uploader does not support MPEG-2 movies.
> These movies are most commonly found on DVDs.
> *****************************************
>
> It does say 'most consumer formats, including'... probably another
> longshot....
> --
> Sue Morton
>
> "Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> I haven't checked Google, which might be a good idea, but YouTube doesn't
>> deal with SWF format. The formats they claim to accept are .WMV, .AVI,
>> .MOV, and .MPG. They recommend against WMV on quality grounds, and I
>> know
>> from experience (my current video on there at
>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLT4OgPvInU) that AVI is a bit dicey due to the
>> tradeoffs between file size and quality (they have a limit of 100MB for
>> files size).
>>
>> Just looking back at their page on format recommendations
>> (www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=55744&topic=10523),
>> I
>> actually notice they are suggesting MPEG4 (DivX, Xvid, SVQ3) at 320x240,
>> with 64k Mono MP3 Audio. But it seems to me that might be contradicting
>> the
>
>
>

Just found www.newgrounds.com as a potential Flash hosting site. It doesn't
seem to have options to embed videos from there elsewhere like YouTube does,
but might be a way to at least have it be somewhere that can handle the
bandwidth (and possibly also even get better odds of people seeing it).

Separately, I also found www.swftools.org, which has some command-line tools
for extracting stuff from SWF files. They made it easy to extract the MP3
file portion of my video. Not sure if the visual side stuff will end up
being useful, though as there are a gazillion objects in this one, and
rebuilding the video from those, in some format other than Flash (and I've
never tried authoring for Flash anyway), might be extremely daunting to say
the least.

Oh well, more fodder for looking at tonight or some othe night when I have
more time. Now I really do need to get back onto the project I'm really
supposed to be doing. ;-)

Rick

--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================

"Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Yeah, the rub is in converting from SWF, to most any other format, in the
> first place. I just checked the info at Google Videos for their format
> info
> (http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=26562&topic=11462),
> and they explicitly say, "please note that we currently do not accept
> Flash files."
>
> Actually, the other thing I'm thinking about is the possibility of any
> YouTube-like sites that may host Flash files. I don't even know if such
> sites exist, but, if they did, I could always use that sort of thing.
> Just a quick search turned up KillSomeTime.com, but even the home page
> there seems littered with sex ads, so maybe not that one. ;-) But maybe
> there may be others. Yet another possible avenue to investigate tonight
> or next chance I get.
>
> Rick
> --
> =======================================
> Rick Paul
> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
> Web: www.RickPaul.info
> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
> =======================================
>
>
> "Sue Morton" <> wrote in message
> news:CS0_i.69248$...
>> Rats it was just a stray thought, albeit a hopeful one. AOL video? From
>> their FAQ, no SWF support but still thinking if you can get it into one
>> of
>> the other formats?
>>
>> (from AOL Video FAQ)
>> *****************************************
>> What video formats can be uploaded?
>>
>> The VideoEgg publisher, which powers the uploading functionality, draws
>> dynamically on a variety of resources, including the specific codecs
>> installed on your computer, to decode the video you want to publish. As a
>> result, there is some variation from computer to computer with respect to
>> the videos that can be uploaded. Generally speaking, however, the
>> VideoEgg
>> Publisher should be able to read the video inside most consumer formats,
>> including:
>>
>> .3gp
>> .3gp2
>> .avi
>> .dv
>> .mpg
>> .mpg4
>> .mov
>> .mqv
>> .wmv
>>
>> Note: At this time, the VideoEgg uploader does not support MPEG-2 movies.
>> These movies are most commonly found on DVDs.
>> *****************************************
>>
>> It does say 'most consumer formats, including'... probably another
>> longshot....
>> --
>> Sue Morton
>>
>> "Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
>> news:...
>>> I haven't checked Google, which might be a good idea, but YouTube
>>> doesn't
>>> deal with SWF format. The formats they claim to accept are .WMV, .AVI,
>>> .MOV, and .MPG. They recommend against WMV on quality grounds, and I
>>> know
>>> from experience (my current video on there at
>>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLT4OgPvInU) that AVI is a bit dicey due to the
>>> tradeoffs between file size and quality (they have a limit of 100MB for
>>> files size).
>>>
>>> Just looking back at their page on format recommendations
>>> (www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=55744&topic=10523),
>>> I
>>> actually notice they are suggesting MPEG4 (DivX, Xvid, SVQ3) at 320x240,
>>> with 64k Mono MP3 Audio. But it seems to me that might be contradicting
>>> the
>>
>>
>>
>
>

OK now write those folk with the video-only-no-sound-yet free converter and
get them to convert your video successfully, marry up your MP3 with the
result and you're all set!!!
--
Sue Morton

"Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Just found www.newgrounds.com as a potential Flash hosting site. It
> doesn't seem to have options to embed videos from there elsewhere like
> YouTube does, but might be a way to at least have it be somewhere that can
> handle the bandwidth (and possibly also even get better odds of people
> seeing it).
>
> Separately, I also found www.swftools.org, which has some command-line
> tools for extracting stuff from SWF files. They made it easy to extract
> the MP3 file portion of my video. Not sure if the visual side stuff will
> end up being useful, though as there are a gazillion objects in this one,
> and rebuilding the video from those, in some format other than Flash (and
> I've never tried authoring for Flash anyway), might be extremely daunting
> to say the least.
>
> Oh well, more fodder for looking at tonight or some othe night when I have
> more time. Now I really do need to get back onto the project I'm really
> supposed to be doing. ;-)
>
> Rick
>
> --
> =======================================
> Rick Paul
> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
> Web: www.RickPaul.info
> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
> =======================================
>
> "Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Yeah, the rub is in converting from SWF, to most any other format, in the
>> first place. I just checked the info at Google Videos for their format
>> info
>> (http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=26562&topic=11462),
>> and they explicitly say, "please note that we currently do not accept
>> Flash files."
>>
>> Actually, the other thing I'm thinking about is the possibility of any
>> YouTube-like sites that may host Flash files. I don't even know if such
>> sites exist, but, if they did, I could always use that sort of thing.
>> Just a quick search turned up KillSomeTime.com, but even the home page
>> there seems littered with sex ads, so maybe not that one. ;-) But maybe
>> there may be others. Yet another possible avenue to investigate tonight
>> or next chance I get.
>>
>> Rick
>> --
>> =======================================
>> Rick Paul
>> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
>> Web: www.RickPaul.info
>> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
>> =======================================
>>
>>
>> "Sue Morton" <> wrote in message
>> news:CS0_i.69248$...
>>> Rats it was just a stray thought, albeit a hopeful one. AOL video?
>>> From
>>> their FAQ, no SWF support but still thinking if you can get it into one
>>> of
>>> the other formats?
>>>
>>> (from AOL Video FAQ)
>>> *****************************************
>>> What video formats can be uploaded?
>>>
>>> The VideoEgg publisher, which powers the uploading functionality, draws
>>> dynamically on a variety of resources, including the specific codecs
>>> installed on your computer, to decode the video you want to publish. As
>>> a
>>> result, there is some variation from computer to computer with respect
>>> to
>>> the videos that can be uploaded. Generally speaking, however, the
>>> VideoEgg
>>> Publisher should be able to read the video inside most consumer formats,
>>> including:
>>>
>>> .3gp
>>> .3gp2
>>> .avi
>>> .dv
>>> .mpg
>>> .mpg4
>>> .mov
>>> .mqv
>>> .wmv
>>>
>>> Note: At this time, the VideoEgg uploader does not support MPEG-2
>>> movies.
>>> These movies are most commonly found on DVDs.
>>> *****************************************
>>>
>>> It does say 'most consumer formats, including'... probably another
>>> longshot....
>>> --
>>> Sue Morton
>>>
>>> "Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
>>> news:...
>>>> I haven't checked Google, which might be a good idea, but YouTube
>>>> doesn't
>>>> deal with SWF format. The formats they claim to accept are .WMV, .AVI,
>>>> .MOV, and .MPG. They recommend against WMV on quality grounds, and I
>>>> know
>>>> from experience (my current video on there at
>>>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLT4OgPvInU) that AVI is a bit dicey due to the
>>>> tradeoffs between file size and quality (they have a limit of 100MB for
>>>> files size).
>>>>
>>>> Just looking back at their page on format recommendations
>>>> (www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=55744&topic=10523),
>>>> I
>>>> actually notice they are suggesting MPEG4 (DivX, Xvid, SVQ3) at
>>>> 320x240,
>>>> with 64k Mono MP3 Audio. But it seems to me that might be
>>>> contradicting
>>>> the
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

"Sue Morton" <> wrote in message
news:On3_i.2841$...
> OK now write those folk with the video-only-no-sound-yet free converter
> and

You mean the one that didn't work? ;-)

> get them to convert your video successfully, marry up your MP3 with the
> result and you're all set!!!

I didn't get much time last night to play around with this, but I did come
up with one, possibly significant, development. I found a freeware screen
capture program called CamStudio (http://camstudio.org/) that captures the
full screen or regions of your screen to an AVI file. Interestingly, it can
also then create SWF files from the results, for example if you're trying to
document something on your computer and want to put it in a smaller sized
video that someone can watch than AVI would yield.

My first attempt at capturing my Flash video, with the video sized at the
target size of 320x240 and the program on its default settings, worked to
only extract the video, but the quality of the extracted video was fairly
lousy. I then noticed there are lots of options in the program, including
to extract the audio, too, but also lots of variations on video codec (the
default was to use one for Windows Video 1, which I seem to remember as
being lousy quality), so I tried playing with options to see if I could get
something better. Unfortunately, I didn't succeed in getting anything after
that, perhaps because the first setting I tried were too demanding or
something, or maybe because of an error message I saw in the audio hookup
attempt. And maybe after that something important was hung as shutting down
my system noted that Windows Media Player didn't stop (although it wasn't
open on the screen at the time).

In any event, next time I get a chance to mess around with this, I'll have
to try again to capture something with this, be it just the video or the
video and audio. My expectation is that I can probably get it to work once
I figure out the magic combination of codecs and other options -- those
always befuddle me in video applications as there are so many different
options, and I have no clue how to intelligently decide which ones to pick,
so end up doing trial and error in many cases.

Rick
--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================

Good luck... I've used CamStudio (but not to record a flash video) and it is
basic but decent. I still think you should write the bozo's with the
product that didn't work, and get them to convert your SWF video portion for
you After all, what good is freeware if it doesn't work? <vbg>
--
Sue Morton

"Rick Paul" <> wrote in message
news:...
> "Sue Morton" <> wrote in message
> news:On3_i.2841$...
>> OK now write those folk with the video-only-no-sound-yet free converter
>> and
>
> You mean the one that didn't work? ;-)
>
>> get them to convert your video successfully, marry up your MP3 with the
>> result and you're all set!!!
>
> I didn't get much time last night to play around with this, but I did come
> up with one, possibly significant, development. I found a freeware screen
> capture program called CamStudio (http://camstudio.org/) that captures the
> full screen or regions of your screen to an AVI file. Interestingly, it
> can also then create SWF files from the results, for example if you're
> trying to document something on your computer and want to put it in a
> smaller sized video that someone can watch than AVI would yield.
>
> My first attempt at capturing my Flash video, with the video sized at the
> target size of 320x240 and the program on its default settings, worked to
> only extract the video, but the quality of the extracted video was fairly
> lousy. I then noticed there are lots of options in the program, including
> to extract the audio, too, but also lots of variations on video codec (the
> default was to use one for Windows Video 1, which I seem to remember as
> being lousy quality), so I tried playing with options to see if I could
> get something better. Unfortunately, I didn't succeed in getting anything
> after that, perhaps because the first setting I tried were too demanding
> or something, or maybe because of an error message I saw in the audio
> hookup attempt. And maybe after that something important was hung as
> shutting down my system noted that Windows Media Player didn't stop
> (although it wasn't open on the screen at the time).
>
> In any event, next time I get a chance to mess around with this, I'll have
> to try again to capture something with this, be it just the video or the
> video and audio. My expectation is that I can probably get it to work
> once I figure out the magic combination of codecs and other options --
> those always befuddle me in video applications as there are so many
> different options, and I have no clue how to intelligently decide which
> ones to pick, so end up doing trial and error in many cases.
>
> Rick
> --
> =======================================
> Rick Paul
> Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
> Web: www.RickPaul.info
> MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
> =======================================
>
>

"Sue Morton" <> wrote in message
news:s1n_i.6009$...
> you After all, what good is freeware if it doesn't work? <vbg>

Sometimes I think the whole point of freeware is to get you so frustrated
with what doesn't work for free that you're more than willing to cough up
the bucks for some known, proven software afterward. ;-) I noticed on the
CamStudio site that there were Google Ads for commercial products that were
up the same alley.

Rick

--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================