15-Minute Reviews :: Moyea SWF to Video Converter Pro v1.16.2.0

Hello everyone and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Moyea SWF to Video Converter Pro version 1.16.2.0 by Moyea Flash Video Software – An application to convert SWF Flash files into videos.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states: (Part)

“Moyea SWF to Video Converter Pro is a handy utility that can perfectly convert SWF files and Flash projectors to AVI, MPEG, MOV, FLV, AAC, 3GP (3GPP/3GPP2), MP4 (iPod movie and PSP movie), DV, etc, with advanced editing and watermark functions for playback in public or in the private recreation.”

Quick Pros

• Ability to take from Internet Explorer cache
• Cropping, resizing and watermarking functionality
• Automatic or manual mode handy – Able to record an interactive SWF video
• Selections for export format extensive – Profiles to help choose a good format
• Resulting video is decent quality

Quick Cons

• No Firefox support
• Should have had presets for portables
• Could be a huge ‘Next’ button instead (or including) the buttons along the top
• Conversion process is fairly slow
• FLV support a separate application

Expansion

With all the SWF files on the net this day and age, as well as many sites wanting to cover as many aspects with distributing their Flash videos, this application can cover a lot of ground; From those wanting to download their favorite Flash animation and put it on their PSP, to those who want to take their Flash animation and get even move coverage via YouTube and other media sites, this could cover a lot of territory.

While the application is a straight forward wizard-style interface, it is laid out fairly logically. Rather than just being able to take an SWF file, you can also take one that Internet Explorer has cached directly – May still take a little hunting, especially if you have watched a lot, but shouldn’t be as tedious as trying to save the SWF off the site. Unfortunately, there appears to be no Firefox support. There is a lot of extras in this version – cropping, resizing and watermarking are notable features which may prove valuable. When converting, there is automatic mode which essentially advances frames when an animation stops on a frame (Say for example a ‘Play’ button comes up.) There is also manual mode, where you can control the advancing of the Flash animation. While I did not try it, this might be handy for those who may want to demo their Turret Defense skills or otherwise for example – I don’t know how well this would work; I did not have the chance to test this.

There is a lot of output options; There are ‘Profiles’ that you can also add your own profiles to as well, which will be helpful if you are planning on taking video over to your porable device. It seems like an oversight, but there are no presets for portable players in which they also have ‘lite’ versions to convert to; I would hope at the price of the title, it would have not only had the presets that it does have, but also have presets for the portable units as well; Someone may have no idea on the format for a PSP for example and end up having to research it to make their own profile. The resulting video quality is good as well and good audio sync on the two SWF files I tested on. That said, while conversion is smooth and did well, I found that entire process was longer than I would hope; There is first the capture phase which runs at the fastest it thinks it can handle without causing issues, and then there’s the encoding phase which is full speed; These two phases (Plus the testing phase it does as well) does add up to quite a bit of time to encode; It may be of benefit to the author of this application to take advantage of systems which have dual cores to already be encoding the video on the second core while the first core is working on capturing.

One last note; While it is fairly self-explanatory with the 4 buttons along the top for the steps, it would have been nice to make a next/previous buttonset as well.

Final Verdict

This application did as it advertised; It converted from SWF to various video formats (And quite a few formats as well), maintaining audio synchronization. The application should have had presets for portable players as well rather than make the user find out what they need. While free, it is a decent application – I would recommend anyone who has SWF to video needs to grab it while they can, especially concidering the price tag. A note as well, while the price is stated to be $74.95 on Giveaway of the Day when you go to their website, it is actually listed at $79.95. $74.95 is per license at the 5-10 license amount. Unfortunately, I do not feel that this application is worth $79.95; The primary purchaser may be a business looking for more coverage, but even for a simple converter, it is still steep. There is a standard version which lacks the watermarking, cropping and transparent AVI support for $49.95, which is a little more reasonable.

There are freeware and more affordable alternatives out there: SWF to Video Scout ($34.95 – Includes support for other browsers) and SWF to AVI Convert (Free – Only to AVI) are two I quickly found just searching Google quickly.

Posted by BladedThoth on Monday, July 02, 2007