How do I convert a Camtasia screencast (SWF format) back to a regular video format (e.g. DivX)? Preferably using free tools only?

Question

The replays of talks at a recent virtual online conference were made available in SWF-format. I presume that most if not all of the presentations were produced using Camtasia Studio. I would very much prefer to watch these videos on my TV rather than at my computer and would thus like to convert them to something that can be read and played back by my DVD player, e.g. DivX or some other MPEG variation.

I have searched the net far and wide and all I found so far were some free tools for decompiling the SWF down to resources (which leaves me with a bunch of delta JPGs and if I'm lucky an audio file) on the one hand and some ridiculously-priced tools that advertise themselves as being converters but truly appear to be mere video capture tools that can only convert the SWFs in realtime on the other hand (and I would rather like to avoid having to convert some 40 hours of videos "in realtime").

I find it hard to believe that it should be this hard to do that conversion as I was under the impression that Camtasia was already working with MPEG-video internally as well...

Any suggestions?

BTW: I do own a copy of Camtasia 3 if that helps.

Answer 1

Your best bet is exactly what you don't want to do: screencasting. You don't have to be in the room to capture, you know. Start up the process before you leave for work, and another before you go to bed, and you can record 2 presentations per day. You're probably breaking the agreement you made with the host, though. Virtual conferences I've been aware of all forbid recording or converting their presentations.

Answer 2

You could try SUPER. It does support swf as an input format. Not sure it will be able to read the Camtasia Studio files though.