What's the best way to convert Flash animations to some sort of video file?

I've gotten some Flash files out of my Temp Internet Files, and I'd like a method that didn't include Quicktime or RealPlayer, if possible.

Thanks!

Use a screen capture utility that can make a video clip?

And here I was thinking you didn't want to be a single white female anymore

You can use Quicktime to do it. Load up the SWF in there and then Export. I'm pretty sure this requires Quicktime Pro.

Edit: I've done this before, but I can't seem to get it to work now for some reason. It claims that the SWF has no audio track, so none gets saved. But I've done it before. Weird.

That's where I went...

Excellent one, Laura

Bitt, I was hoping to avoid Quicktime, but I have heard solutions using it for what I want to do, so I guess I'll go ahead and install it. Argh, I didn't have Real or Quicktime installed on my system last week, and now I'm using both of them! booo

Other than the annoying UI, I don't see why folks have a problem with Quicktime. It's head and shoulders better than either of the other two major players for ``streaming'' and it doesn't have any take-over-your-computer tendencies, as long as you tell it not to. You have to manually disable the tray icon under Windows, but that's pretty easy.

It's not that easy, and you can't fully uninstall the program either.

I'll try it again and see how it does.

Actually, I never liked the interface. No bubbles for me please. I like straight edges. Why else would I use Win2K?

and it doesn't have any take-over-your-computer tendencies

<OFFTOPIC>
Way Back When, Qucktime used to without fail take over MIDI files in netscape. Now, I hate midi background music as much as the next guy, so I would always keep them muted in my soundcard mixer. Once QT took them over, it would output them as WAVs. I searched and reinstalled multiple times looking for the option to not have it take over MIDI files, but it always did. I still havn't forgiven quicktime.
</OFFTOPIC>

Matthew

And here I was thinking you didn't want to be a single white female anymore

Interesting to note that each of those three criteria require significantly different amounts of effort and expenditure to change.

True. I forgot it used to be much more evil than it is now. It never descended to levels of RealPlayer horror, though.

I'll agree with that

Interesting to note that each of those three criteria require significantly different amounts of effort and expenditure to change.

Michael Jackson seems to have taken care of the last two...

I also cannot find a way to export the audio with the video of a Flash file. I'm amazed they would not offer this option.

I tried importing audio from a video in Cool Edit Pro, but it only get the first audio clip in a file. So if the flash has an intro, only the intro will get imported.

I also tried exporting the audio from Winamp. It seemed okay, but I got stuttering inbetween clips and the whole thing cut off really early.

Argh...I'm still trying though.

Oh, and here is the perfect program for getting sounds out of Flash animations.

And now that I have sufficiently completed the tasks I set out to complete, I bid you all a good night. Time for sleep...all 4 hours of it...:(

Being a Mac user, where QuickTime is heavily integrated into the OS, is used in almost every application and works very elegantly, it's easy to forget what a horror it is on Windows.

For me, QT would occasionally blow up when installing a Windows service pack or security update, although I'm sure it's just coincidence that it happened three or four times.

I had one problem where whenever anything to do with QT appeared on the screen, the icons and graphic down the left of the start menu would get corrupted and turn into grey static. This survived even through a reinstall of QT.

I don't see why folks have a problem with Quicktime

It doesn't have a full-screen mode on Windows.

It doesn't have one on Mac OS either. You have to pay for the pro version to get it. Quite why that's a pro feature is still unknown, however.

That's about the only reason I get a Pro license, in fact.