Converting Flash to QT?

June 5, 2008 7:27 AM

Can I convert this flash-format into quicktime or some other burnable format?

I am an actor. I did this webisodic thing for Tassimo hot beverage machines. It's in a flash-format thing. I can't get a copy of it from the ad people and so let's assume I really can't and skip suggestions on that. Can anyone out there figure out how to download this into a format I could add to a reel, say?

Thanks for your ideas!

Bonus points for someone who can actually demonstrate that a theory works.

posted by moedym to computers & internet (16 comments total)

You could see it at YouTube and buy a piece of software like Tubesock to download and convert it.
posted by Jofus at 7:43 AM on June 5, 2008

(it'll always be a sucky low-def version though - not necessarily what you need for a portfolio.)
posted by Jofus at 7:44 AM on June 5, 2008

[Links removed from post. You're welcome to link the site in your profile, but your core "flash -> quicktime/other" question is basically content-neutral.]
posted by cortex at 7:51 AM on June 5, 2008

This is a pretty easy method if you have Firefox or IE and the file is a standard swf file.
posted by iconomy at 7:59 AM on June 5, 2008

If you're on a Mac you can Safari's "Activity" window (in the Window menu natch) to find the largest file linked to from that page (close all other Safari windows to make it easier to find) . That will usually be the video file itself. You can that save it to your drive and use something like Visual Hub to convert it to a standard video file.

And yes, the quality will (usually) suck.
posted by schwa at 8:17 AM on June 5, 2008

If you can get the file in swf or flv format, you can use the free Super (link is at the bottom of the page) to convert it to avi, mov wmv or other formats
posted by 543DoublePlay at 8:18 AM on June 5, 2008

http://vixy.net/ will convert the video to a bunch of formats.
posted by PowerCat at 8:31 AM on June 5, 2008

vixy is a also a web site so you don't need to download anything.
posted by PowerCat at 8:31 AM on June 5, 2008

Seconding Super.
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:02 AM on June 5, 2008

your process will be:

1. obtain SWF, if you don't have it already. You can either create your own link directly to the SWF and right-click and save that, or use a third-party plugin for your browser. If it is a FLV in a player, you *may* be in trouble if you can't get access to the original FLV. unfortunately your link has been (overzealously?) removed (perhaps you could repost it) so I can't make any suppositions about that. On the up side, FLV should be supported by even more converters than SWF.
2. Use a conversion program to convert the SWF to the format you want. Super will do it, and Super is one of the few programs out there that'll convert to/from Quicktime. Unfortunately the author decided to create his own wacky UI so it can be a little confusing to use. Hang in there; it really does work. The upside is that it is free.

Unless Quicktime is the standard for putting together reels, I would highly suggest avoiding it. I've found QT files are the absolute worst to work with conversion-wise, so I think it's a poor archival choice. If you are trying to burn it to a player-compatible VCD or DVD format, I would consider picking a format closer to what will be needed for the the final (I never burn VCD/DVDs, so maybe someone else can make a suggestion here). There's some other software suggested there for this purpose, but none of it is free. Some of it is trialware, and *may* allow you enough functionality for your purposes, but you'd have to download it and see. Again, if you're comfortable enough with Super you should be set.

Whenever you have to work with video I highly recommend checking out videohelp.com tools page and searching their guides. They are a fantastic resource for this sort of thing.
posted by fishfucker at 10:11 AM on June 5, 2008

Wow. Bummer that my link was edited. I think the problem is site-specific, so I've posted the link in my profile. I'd still appreciate help on this, but I think it's specific to the site, as the movie is playing through some stupid Accelecast player or something.
posted by moedym at 12:36 PM on June 5, 2008

Yeah, I don't see any immediate way to snatch that. It's pretty well buried. You might start by rebuilding the link that's called from the jscript by hand; I started doing that but it's filled with GET vars so I didn't bother to take the time after a shorter request failed.

This is definitely a link specific question.

Anyways, at this point, you're going to have to get your hands on the FLV before you worry about conversion. You might have to go with a stream capture route of some sort.
posted by fishfucker at 1:12 PM on June 5, 2008

well, here's the XML file listing for the first video.

this links to the program.xml

So that gives us a list of FLVs, but you're probably going to have to spend some extra time seeing where they are coming from. They MIGHT be served using a diff. protocol than http which would make things somewhat difficult. If i have some free time later on i'll futz about more.
posted by fishfucker at 1:23 PM on June 5, 2008

fishfucker's law: give a programmer a reason to procrastinate and he'll take it.

So, I got it:

http://pcomm.accelacomm.com/cgi-bin/fserve?tassimo2_High.flv@0&ord=0.793094241060317

It's about 40M, you'll probably need to add the FLV extension after you download it (it just downloads a file called 'fserve' with no flv). It should be pretty easy to get the other file too; i think it's here:

http://pcomm.accelacomm.com/cgi-bin/fserve?tassimo1_High.flv@0&ord=0.793094241060317

but I haven't bothered to dl it.

After you get those files, you should be able to use Super or whatever to convert them. It's possible that you might just be able to open them up in Quicktime Pro (Pro only, the free version is hobbled) and export them directly to quicktime. Worth a shot.
posted by fishfucker at 2:05 PM on June 5, 2008

(btw, I used this page to get some advice about grabbing rtmp streams (which this turned out not to be, apparently). Orbit didn't work, but WM Recorder was able to grab a URL after some tweaking).
posted by fishfucker at 2:08 PM on June 5, 2008

Thanks Fishfraker! You made my day. Downloaded and converted the first one and doing the second one now. Seriously. That was awesome thank you.
posted by moedym at 9:14 PM on June 5, 2008