A search for "swf to mov convert" turned up a few free applications and several more that cost. One could also record the swf as it plays then output the file to the desired format.

Most of these tools are PC based and I'm sorry that I don't have any real info for Mac... though I suspect that Mac tools that do the same thing are available. The recorder option might be the best bet... and can be used for just about any kind of video on the web.

BoostSoftware,

Like Tangor said, search for "swf to qt on osx" you will find a few.

Yeah...found quite a few for PC conversion. The Mac is going to make this much more of a challenge. Thanks for your kind input:-)

There are converters for Mac. Look for Video Converter Ultimate for Mac. They have a free trial, but the package is close to $60 because it has editing and other features you may not be looking for. They may have others for less, I did a quick search on ixquick for media converters, but didn't look around the site where I found that one. I know there are some out there.

Thanks for the Ultimate lead. No, I use Final Cut so no need for an editing program. However, maybe the trial will get me where I need to be with this swf file this time. I would like to find something permanent tho....someone just told me about 2 other sources I've played around with: VLC and HandBrake. Worth a try, since I'm doing a consumer test at this point;-) Appreciate all the input and feedback, here.

I have a close fried who uses FinalCut, no updates except for Pro version which is a lot more that wanted or needed for hobby type stuff. He ended up needing to buy a converter (about $40) or switch to FCPro. Sorry to tell you that at least last Sept. when he was looking, there wasn't a more reliable and reasonable answer out there. Things evolve, so good luck and let us all know if you get to a better answer.

Mods... I'm going to cite to some outside references and products, which I hope are OK here.

Since .swf is an Adobe file, I assumed that Adobe Media Encoder would be able to convert it, but it turns out that it can't. As explained in this Adobe Forums discussion...

Converting .SWF to .MOV or .AVI
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3714341 [forums.adobe.com]

...(.swf) is an interactive file, not a simple video file.

Additionally, "playable" video-only exports of .swf, as I remember, contain something like an embedded player (my guess from what I've read), which probably also complicates conversion.

The Adobe forum discussion suggests several approaches to converting, including screen capture... and it mentions three utilities that should convert .swf to .mov for a Mac. At least one of these utilities, probably all, probably internally converts the video movie output of a .swf file to .mov or .avi... so the process is in essence screen capture without the display.

As I can see that some of the pages aren't likely to be found by search, I'm going to include links to the sites/pages I checked....

Doremisoft Mac SWF Video Converter
[doremisoft.net...]

Convert SWF to MOV
[convertswftomov.com...]

SWF to MOV Converter for Mac
[swftomovmac.com...]

I'd check out all the utilities mentioned. I believe that most offer free download or a 30-day guarantee. It's likely that the quality on these may vary enough with the codecs on your system that you could get different results with different utilities.

One of the above pages has a sound file that goes off randomly, so turn your volume down when you visit them.

(Adobe Media Encoder, I should add, now is available only through Adobe Creative Cloud... IMO unfortunate. The above utilities are a lot cheaper than Media Encoder in any case.)

I'll chime in one last time on this... Find a PC (that's the other computer, not the current political speak) Buddy. Send him the file. Let him do the conversion and send it back to you. This works quite well for one or three files... or might turn into a business relationship if more than that and continuously on-going. If it is a really significant amount of work, install Windows for MAC, down load the converters, and go from there. (I know this works. I do this for a few of my MAC buddies. :) )

Thanks, Robert. Good resources...I'm working on them now. I do currently have a subscription to the Creative Cloud Suite, so will also see if I can get in on the Adobe Media Encoder action. Wow! Good stuff.

And interesting tip also, Tangor. Actually, I do have a dusty old PC around here and I may turn out to be my best customer if I can get that to work. Great tips here...Thanks.

BoostSoftware - For more of a background on codecs, I'd posted links to some good references in this thread...

Video Conversion Processing Tips
http://www.webmasterworld.com/video/4561477.htm [webmasterworld.com]

Codecs are an area that will have you tearing your hair out.

Additionally, if you're building a library of videos, be aware that archiving is turning into a major problem for all digital data, something tech corporations didn't think about before they took us down that road.

There's some word that Sony and Panasonic are attempting to tackle the problem with a 100-year optical disk, not yet on the market, but it's going to be very expensive. Other media are likely to be hit or miss. Hardware to play some formats back is also disappearing, making any format choices problematic.

The "cloud" starts getting very expensive with video, and the changing codec problems aren't going away. This presents a difficult problem if your material is an asset that is either unique or took time/money/effort to produce.

As a Mac user I'd suggest Kiwi Fruitware Media Converter. It's free and open source, and I've used it to convert swf video to other formats.