15-Minute Reviews :: SWF Video Converter v3.0.20.77

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is SWF Video Converter version 3.0.20.77 by Eltima Software – An application to convert from a wide array of video formats to legacy Flash 3 or modern Flash MX SWF file format as well as the FLV file format.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“SWF Video Converter is a handy utility to convert any movie file (AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, 3GP) into compressed SWF video and FLV streaming video formats.

SWF Video Converter offers several useful options to select SWF file format (legacy Flash 3, latest Flash MX or FLV), specify Flash movie quality, add audio/video controls (start/stop/pause/etc.) to resulting Flash file, apply custom text and/or image watermarks to copyright your files, specify watermarks opacity and position as well as create HTML page with embedded SWF movie. Advanced options allow you to crop movie screen in order to emphasize certain objects or remove unwanted areas such as markers or subtitles, replace original sound with your own (WAV or MP3), adjust sampling and bitrates and save original soundtrack into separate file (MP3).

On-screen movie preview and Activity logs make conversion process easy and hassle-free. Our application uses DirectShow technology to render movies. It supports almost all popular file extensions such as AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF and 3GP as well as other available codecs.”

Quick Pros

• Application interface straightforward
• Text and graphic watermarking – Offers more control over positioning
• Audio compression settings as well as track saving and replacement
• Ability to add a controller onto the Flash FX SWF format handy
• Speed adequate – about 3:30 minutes for a 7:22 (5.26MB) file
• Resulting video file adequate quality depending on setting

Quick Cons

• Get an MSVCR71.dll error on start – Does not appear to affect usage
• Resulting file size larger – 5.26MB WMV to 11.6MB MX SWF file
• Watermark feature auto-scales text or video only
• Audio properties sliders too ‘course’
• Cropping seemed to be broken for me

Expansion

With the advent of the internet and the recent boom of embedded video, Flash videos have gain a significant marketplace – You can see videos most everywhere you go. With that said, there is a market for those who wish to create Flash content without spending a significant amount of money on Flash Professional.

This application (When you get past the initial startup bug – See below) has a decent interface; There isn’t a lot to get lost on with this application. The settings are spread across three tabs and explains some of what the settings are as well. A preview window on the left shows you what video you are working on (Unfortunately does not show you the resulting file preview). There is even a log box at the bottom to see how the process is progressing.

There is a lot of features here. First is the watermarking functionality. Text and graphics including opacity control and a set of 7 predefined watermark positions should suit most people’s needs. I did have an issue with the watermark function – I added one to the bottom-right of my first test video which was a smaller resolution. I did not see it at first – Apparently the application scales it to fit the predefined locations, so caution when picking a location and text/graphic size – It will be automatically scaled. Secondly, there is decently-powerful audio compression controls (I say decently because the sliders are too ‘coarse’ for sample rate and bitrate) and provide the ability to not only remove the audio track, but to substitute the audio track with another (There are a lot of possibilities with this option). As well, a common one but nice nonetheless is the video controller that can be added to Flash MX SWF files and produces the HTML embed file for you.

The conversion went smoothly and the speed wasn’t too bad: Took about 3 minutes and 30 seconds to convert a WMV file that was 7 minutes and 22 seconds (5.26MB original filesize.) My concern is the compression – This run used a medium setting on output video quality (Which did slightly reduce the video quality) and the original 5.3MB WMV file turned into an 11.6MB SWF file. That is a seemingly-unhealthy growth rate in my opinion. I tested converting directly to FLV format to see how much less apace it would use without the SWF wrapper. Oddly, the file, with the exact same settings as the first ended up being 15.3MB large. I tested simply for file size a shorter AVI file – 2.3MB and ended with a SWF file which sat at 3.9MB large, so it doesn’t appear to be an issue of file format.

My biggest issue is that every time I launch the application, I get an application launch error, stating the application failed to launch due to a missing DLL (MSVCR71.dll) – You click Ok and the application still launches. While it was a quick find to find the DLL online At DLL-Files.com and install it into the same directory as the EXE – C:\Program Files\Eltima Software\SWF Video Converter\ typically. The DLL should maybe be packaged or at least test for and downloaded during installation. I did retest after I installed the DLL to ensure the gross file sizes weren’t related to this; The file stayed the same resulting size with the DLL in place.

I tried before and after the DLL insertion with the cropping function but to no avail; I just do not get the crop box on the screen for cropping. I do not know if this is an isolated incident to my computer, but it is an issue nonetheless.

Final Verdict

While I did find the application and its features nice and the conversion speed adequate, I do feel that the application is lacking more powerful functions such as trimming and others common to an application like this. That said, I did find it irritating having to find the DLL to install it just so I wouldn’t have to see the error every time I launched the application. A final note – The file size is, in my opinion, a hefty growth. Flash video compression is supposed to be one of the slimmest on the net and instead ended a significant growth in file size. While free, you can give this application a try; The interface and usability is there and you may not have the MSVCR71.dll issue on your computer. Alas, as for paying $39.95, I would likely steer away from this one lacking trimming, cropping apparently broken and the file size growth being outside what I’ve seen with other applications.

Posted by BladedThoth on Thursday, July 12, 2007