Have you been driven absolutely out of your ever-lovin’ mind, because you recorded a video using the fabulous and free Jing, only to discover that now you can’t convert it to MP4, Youtube, Amazon S3, or anywhere else because NOTHING will open Jing SWFs??
I know I sure have, and I’m sick to death of it. I looked high and low, and despite finding many programs that can indeed open and convert SWF files, NONE of them can open or convert a Jing SWF in specific.
So what’s the solution? Well it may come as no surprise that the ONE PROGRAM that can actually open a Jing SWF, is Techsmith’s own Camtasia Studio program. In fact in Jing, there’s a button you can click to “Edit in Camtasia” which will actually open the Jing SWF in Camtasia, convert it to an AVI, and then import that AVI into Camtasia for your editing/publishing pleasure.
But you don’t have to then output it with Camtasia. By default, the converted file will be stored in:
C:\Users\[YOUR USER NAME]\Documents\Camtasia Studio\
You can simply grab the AVI file, drop it into Handbrake or whatever else you’re using, and convert away.
The only downside here is that Camtasia Studio isn’t free. But there is a 30 day trial, and if you can’t afford to buy it and you’re clever you can run it in a sandbox forever and just keep using the trial endlessly.
I hope this helps someone else who’s been as frustrated by needing to convert Jing videos as I have been!
JVC
This was a VERY helpful post.
I used it to convert a Jing .swf file to an .avi file for my geography class.
This is the only page I have found on the Internet that tells you how to correctly convert the Jing videos. 🙂
Thank you very, very much. Yes, I was, in fact, going out of my mind trying to figure out how to convert this Jing SWF file. You have saved me. 🙂
You have saved my life and a few days of recording work!! Was pulling my hair out after not being able to use the .swf files in any other piece of software (no video found?)
Thank you!
I’m glad this post has proven helpful to so many people, makes me think it was worthwhile making it! 🙂
JVC
Hi there,
I have another related problem : I can’t even open my swf file with jing because this file was recorded with jing on another computer… is there a possibility to convert the file without opening it in Jing?
Thanks
That’s pretty weird, sounds to me like maybe it’s corrupt. I’m not aware that a swf made on one computer would ever not be able to be opened on another. a swf should be universal especially if both machines are running jing. Sounds like you should try dropping the Jing team an email!
JVC
@Celine: Try opening the swf with chrome or IE. The flash plug-ins should allow it to run. If it doesn’t, ToolTrainer may be right about the file being corrupt.
-Jake
I can’t seem to find the file in my Camtasia folder. 🙁