How to convert a Flash video (*.SWF) to a Movie (*.AVI)

potatosalad · Member Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Location: Kennesaw, GA, USA

This guide requires the following programs:

Quicktime 6 Pro
Flash Player 6
WinADR(MP3 Recorder) or a similar program
VirtualDub or a similar program
Nero Wave Editor or a similar program
BE SURE YOU KNOW HOW EACH OF THESE PROGRAMS WORK, THIS GUIDE DOES NOT EXPLAIN THE STEPS OF USING THE PROGRAMS.

For this example, I am using a flash movie that most people have seen, "Fight" by zhu_zhq. This flash movie can be seen or downloaded from http://www.methodus2000.com/violence/fight.swf.

1. Save your movie on the harddrive, or you may open the movie with Quicktime by choosing File > Open URL. Anyways, you should end up with the movie opened in Quicktime Pro.

2. Once the movie is open in Quicktime Pro, hit File > Export. Fill out the settings and such as shown below:

The Exporting of the *.AVI

You will not be able to export the sound this way. Which really stinks and hopefully Apple will add this feature later.

3. Usually Flash movies have a loading screen and a "start" button of some sort before the actual movie starts. You'll want to cut this out later using VirtualDub, but now let's focus on the sound. With WinADR or a similar program, you can capture the sound of the movie as it's being played. You can use Quicktime to do this (because it has a pause button), but some sounds may be lost. I used the regular Flash player to capture the sound as the movie played below.

Capturing the sound with WinADR and Flash player

Save the captured sound as a *.WAV and not a *.MP3

4. After capturing the sound and saving the video, open the *.AVI with VirtualDub. Select the middle of the clip to get rid of the loading screens and start button if there are any. Hit File > Save As AVI to save the edited AVI.

Cutting out the loading screens and start button.

(Make sure that under Video and Audio, "Direct Stream Copy" is selected)

5. Now open the new AVI with VirtualDub and select Audio > WAV Audio. Select the captured sound file and hit play. Make sure the audio matches up with the video. If not, open the *.WAV file with Nero Wave Editor. Deleting the silence at the beginning of the file usually fixes the problem, but sometimes you have to add silence or whatever. Keep tweeking it until you've got the video synced with the music.

This is how much silence there was at the beginning

6. Save the AVI with VirtualDub with the WAV file selected under Audio. Now you have a complete SWF to AVI.

If you want to make the AVI "internet ready", use VirtualDub to compress the audio and the video so the file size is smaller. Otherwise you'll have 100MB for every minute of video.

More questions? E-mail me, Andrew Bennett, at mrpaperclips13@hotmail.com.

DOH!
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mazinz · Killer Pirate Joined: 21 Jul 2001 Location: NY

or you could use the swf2video program and do everything in one simple shot, it works great

BJ_M · Patron Joined: 30 Jul 2002 Location: Canada

yea -- swf2video is a great program
http://www.flashants.com/root/swf2video.shtml

potatosalad · Member Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Location: Kennesaw, GA, USA

oh well, i wanted to make a guide anyways. dangit...i wish i had found this thing out earlier.
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BJ_M · Patron Joined: 30 Jul 2002 Location: Canada

your guide is great potatosalad and i bet you got a lot more knowlage figuring it out your way ..

jeex · Posted: Aug 05, 2002 01:44

i still have admiration for potato salad.. the food, not the who made the stupid guide!.. i kid, i kid.. seriously, i didnt even think of converting swf to avi.. cool guide, even though there is a simpler way..
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potatosalad · Member Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Location: Kennesaw, GA, USA

well learning how to do all this junk took me forever...

by the way: swf2video costs even more money...and i just paid off Quicktime Pro 6...this sucks...
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pepehdez · Member Joined: 20 Nov 2001 Location: Chihuahua, Mexico

I don't quite get it, why use all this stuff if flash has the import to .avi feature ?

Please Explain.
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BJ_M · Patron Joined: 30 Jul 2002 Location: Canada

this is to convert a swf file into avi ... not to import an avi into flash ..

pepehdez · Member Joined: 20 Nov 2001 Location: Chihuahua, Mexico

BJ_M · Patron Joined: 30 Jul 2002 Location: Canada

because you cant load a swf into flash ... this is to convert someone elses swf to a avi

jeex · Posted: Aug 08, 2002 02:58

if i could, i'd hug you potatosalad.. you're a man of destiny (and you actually paid for quicktime 6).. you're going places. so watch out world, this guy is gonna fuck shit up like a trainwreck.
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potatosalad · Member Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Location: Kennesaw, GA, USA

hey, pepehdez, as BJ_M already said, you can't import the full *.SWF into the Macromedia Flash program. However, if you make your own movie, like I have tried and failed miserably, you can hit File > Export Movie... and then the rest is really, really easy.

I'm also going to write another guide, don't copy me, on retaining a Flash's interactivity onto a VCD. Pretty neat, huh?
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Jacky512 · Member Joined: 08 Aug 2002

If you use movie clips and actionscripts in Flash, you may find they don't work when export to .avi in Flash. That means you need to put everything
(including audio)on main timeline, and convert all movie clips into graphcs objects. It will take you lots time if you have movie clips in the flash.
SWF2Video save my time, because I don't need to spend time to modify flash file. I don't worry about movie clips & actionscripts any more!

potatosalad · Member Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Location: Kennesaw, GA, USA

alright, I get that SWF2Video is better than my method, but I just wrote the guide to show how it all works...of...course... Anyways, you can't make a good VCD with interactivity with SWF2Video, so can you guess what my next guide will be?

Look for it soon.
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TimelessMelody · Member Joined: 25 Aug 2002

There is a way to do the same thing with freeware programs as well, use tmpegenc to encode the video and microsofts sound recorder to record the sound into a wav file merg the two in tmpeg flash video wav audio and you have an mpeg, which if ou really wanted to you could then convert in to an avi file.

I am interested in seeing your next guide.

B.

Hanse Wood · Member Joined: 01 Dec 2003

Why not use Magic Swf2Avi?(http://www.effectmatrix.com)

It is a professional tool that can convert flash to avi video with lossless audio.

I think it is better.
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Pusher911 · **Banned** Joined: 08 Feb 2005

xxxxxx

Don't belive - just try and compare them. You will see.

Duck11 · **Banned** Joined: 26 Aug 2005 Location: USA

I've found frogram which converts swf files into avi. I think it will be helpful someone.You can find it on the site xxxxxx
Using this prog you can add your logo to the final video so you can protect you author's rights. I like it!

BJ_M · Patron Joined: 30 Jul 2002 Location: Canada

i bet it hurts those frogs when they are rammed ...
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mhorse · **Banned** Joined: 12 Jul 2006 Location: Hong Kong

It is a guide at 2002, I think there must have better solution now.

Baldrick · Administrator Joined: 09 Aug 2000 Location: Sweden

Yes, SUPER!

siopawman · Member Joined: 31 May 2007 Location: Philippines

sirup · Member Joined: 19 Jul 2008 Location: Canada

well i have this massive issue btu i doubt it's goign to get touched in here...
i need to convert swf files to avi but i need to do it on a mac and can't find a single program that will do it for me

Ai Haibara · Posted: Jul 20, 2008 01:41

There are some shareware/commercial programs that claim to handle it on the Mac, I believe, but I can't vouch for how well they work (if at all). Your best bet is still probably to use a capture program that can capture the video and audio of the SWF while it's playing, and export that to an AVI (or anything that can be converted to an AVI).
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