Converting SWF to MPEG2

May 18, 2005 1:36 PM

I've been working on some Flash that I was hoping to convert to MPEG2 to use as a background for a DVD I'm building. But I've hit a snag..

The software that I had planned to use can only do this with the Pro version, which I cant really afford at the moment
http://www.adshareit.com/

The Lite version is affordable, but cant export as MPEG2 suitable for DVD Studio Pro.

What other methods are there that can do this (either free or cheap)? Most other methods ive tried are extremely lacking. Either low quality, incorrect format, movieclips not playing, actionscript not functioning, backgrounds not showing up etc

posted by lemonfridge to computers & internet (6 comments total)

This seems to do it and is cheap.

The only other way I can think of would be to output it in some other format and convert I don't know what version of flash you're using but mine exports as avi and mov. That's usually not too hard to convert to mpeg if you have a video editing program. I don't know any way to do it for free, though.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:43 PM on May 18, 2005

You could simply capture the screen with Snapz Pro X. It's $70 for the pro version which you'd need to capture video. We do this pretty frequently where I work with great results.

It will save a Quicktime movie to the desktop that you could then convert to MPEG2 with your favorite encoder or import it and let DVD Studio Pro handle the conversion for you.
posted by ssmith at 1:51 PM on May 18, 2005

Have you tried QuickTime pro? I just opened an swf file I had lying around and QTPro played it and could export it. If you had the MPEG2 component (comes with DVDSP) you could export it as MPEG2.
posted by neustile at 1:52 PM on May 18, 2005

Use the "LITE" version, install the HUFFYUV codec (lossless compression, free), then convert to MPEG-2 DVD using BBmpeg (also free).
posted by shepd at 1:58 PM on May 18, 2005

I don't know if AVI is sufficient for your needs, but I have used Magic Swf2Avi with some success. There is a free version and it worked reasonably well for the limited needs we had at the time.
posted by RocketMark at 2:09 PM on May 18, 2005

I can output as uncompressed AVI from the Lite version, which Compressor can then make into compatible MPEGs (I just tried it).

Slightly frustrating, as the AVIs tend to be MASSIVE.

FYI the Lite and Pro version list the HUFFYUV as unsupported, and i don't have Quicktime Pro :(

Any other suggestions for software are very welcome. Thanks
posted by lemonfridge at 2:14 PM on May 18, 2005