.swf to .mov converter for Mac
 

Anyone know of an application that converts .swf files to .mov files for the Mac without using a screen capture application (e.g., SnapzPro, Screen Mimic, etc)?

I've searched this site and haven't found the answer to this specific question. Any help would be appreciated.

I thought QuickTime could play .swf files? Have you tried opening the files that way? If they will open, then QuickTime Pro will be able to convert them to .mov.

No, QuickTime does not open and play .swf files, at least not the latest version of QuickTime and the latest version of Flash .swf files.

im not 100% sure, but try isquint, it wont convert to mov but to mp4, but you can convert it to anything else via imovie

if someone could post a link to a .swf I can try it with VisualHub, QuicktimePro... possibly FFMpegX to see if I can get it working..

the 2 .swf files I have on my iMac both open in Quicktime Pro and can be saved as .mov's .... but I don't know how new they are.

I've tried iSquint, VisualHub, FFMpegX and QuickTime. None will do it.

Anyone wanting to try the convert, you can use this .swf file: http://www.mac-sage.com/test.swf

I'm pretty sure I've opened swf's in Quicktime before but I tried last night with a swf I created and it didn't work. I tested different swfs, ranging from ones with advanced Actionscript (which I expected not to work) to ones with simple tweens, nothing worked. I also tried exporting to a Flash 9 swf all the way down to Flash 5 swf and Quicktime still gave me an error.

I also tested out iSquint as I thought it'd be able to convert it, but I kept on getting errors with it too.

The only way I was able to create a mov file was to export from Flash itself which is not only an expensive solution, it also requires you to have to original fla file which most of the time you won't have. You could of course use something like Gordon to convert the swf to fla, but again that costs money and also not always 100% accurate in the conversion.

Another problem with using Flash to convert is that it depends on how the animation was animated. If it was mostly done by Actionscript, the mov movie might not look right.

http://www.mediafire.com/?f9nsg1lmgvv (180kb)

That mov was created by saving the swf, opening it in Gordon, saving it as a fla, opening the fla in Flash and then exporting as a movie.

Very long winded and (potentially) expensive so it's not something I would recommend. You might as well and probably better off recording the screen with Copernicus (free) or Snapz Pro.

What Quicktime codecs do you have installed? Also would it be possible for you to upload said swfs so I could test them?

I know I'm not the one who started this topic, but I'm interested too, mainly for the fact I'm positive I used to be able to open swfs in Quicktime Pro.

I can email them...... they are only small.... they are a game and a interactive thingie .... PM me if you want them..

the test.swf, however, wont open in QT or VisualHub....

Might be worth seeing if 'SWF Movie Player Pro' has an export function....

I exported a swf from Illustrator and opened it no probs in Quicktime but tried another I downloaded and that wouldn't open. Perhaps it's related to security settings on the published swf?

Here's the the .swf file that I really want to convert. It's a .swf created from a great app called Captivate 2.0 (Adobe). I use it extensively in creating training materials. One problem is it currently only runs in Windows; not OS X. The other problem is that it exports to .swf; not .flv or .fla or .mov. I need to get my tutorials into a QuickTime format. I don't want to use a screen capture app because the quality suffers. ALSO, I have audio in these .swf files, so I'd like the .swf to .mov conversion to handle audio as well.

I know, it's a lot to ask. But it seems like this should be possible. If I create something in Flash, I can export to .mov. But that doesn't help me here, since I want to use Captivate as the production software.

Here's the .swf file created in Captivate: http://www.mac-sage.com/Meebo.swf

Thanks.

Well Snapz Pro X (not free) can capture video and audio also the quality of it depends on the compression level you use on the video - same for any converter. You might, however, need to have a fairly fast Mac as for me video capturing and opening a flash movie takes a heavy hit on system resources.

I tried the Gordon > Flash > mov method on the Meebo.swf file you provided but I got a bunch of load errors, probably due to Captivate using it's own libraries that Flash doesn't have.

Thanks, Melon. I've used both Snapz Pro and Screen Mimic. Both do capture the video and audio, but the quality suffers (even after going through dozens of different settings).

I'm beginning to think that I'll have to wait for Captivate 3 and hope that Adobe allows export directly from Captivate to either a .mov file or a .flv/.fla.

If anyone has any other ideas or suggestions, I'm all ears.

Oh, one note for folks who are doing something similar. If you've got Flash 8 present, Captivate does allow for exporting to Flash 8. This allows Flash 8 to supposedly import the Captivate project. (This is done all on the Windows side via Parallels.) Again, I've tried dozens of settings and have found all to be unacceptable. For example, for some reason, the audio of mouse clicks comes through, but the voice-over fails to import. Go figure.

I don't know what settings you've tried, but you can use no compression - 'None' for audio and video, the result will be a huge file but there shouldn't be any quality loss at all. Alternatively if you use H.264 and set it to 'Best', it should provide next to perfect quality too.

Note, there's a bug where if you try recording straight to H.264 in Snapz, the resulting file will have only white video. The work around is to turn off key framing. I'm not sure if they've fixed it yet, I'm only using 2.0.3.

If you record with no compression, you could open the file in Quicktime Pro and re-encode to H.264. I find Quicktime's export options better than the ones given by Snapz. If you set the video encoding options to something like 500 kbits/sec or more for video data rate (you might be able to get away with something lower) you should get very good quality.

Here's a few small test files I created. I recorded a 10 second clip with no compression using Snapz, opened the file in Quicktime Pro and exported out to H.264. One file has a video data rate of 100 kbits/sec (meebo100.mp4) and the other 200 kbits/sec (meebo200.mp4), both encoded with Multi-pass.

http://www.mediafire.com/?89gb1jga1kc (354kb)

Both seem adequate for me, there's a very slight quality loss, but the text is crisp and it's watchable. Like I said above, use an even higher data rate and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I have the same problem to convert swf to mov on mac os. I have been looking for such a program for a long time. But no good one can do it. Most of them just support flv video. So I use some windows program like iwisoft swf to video converter to convert swf to mov. then share to my macbook. this program is very good for windows. but i still look for such a mac program. anyone knows?

You can get a plugin to play swf in QuickTime and once you get them in QuickTime you can just export them into mov files.

Convert swf to mov
 

Read this post several times along with many others and have tried numerous apps. unsuccessfully on and offline to get a quality conversion. Is there anyone that would convert one swf to a quality mov for me?

I think MPEG-Streamclip also handles swf files.

My MPEG Streamclip does not play swfs.

Try Macvide FlashVideo Converter. It's great!!

Adobe After Effects does a nice job
 

I know it is expensive, but if you are looking to use Swfs in video and want to tie in Illustrator effects and tracings in the process, this is the easiest way to go.

Swfs play directly in After Effects, no problems and you can mess with the coloring and apply further effects once there.

Exports in various video formats.

Thank you, rbarnabas.

Many people know swf converter part of the windows version, but few people know swf converter for mac, and a free trial. Similarly, it can be converted to video and file format.

Thanks, still looking for a free Mac app.