Exporting Flash to a YouTube valid format

Well, krykos and mike wanted to know...

This is actually a very big process (in terms of filesize)

first step is you need an uncompressed videofile... flash has a very lousy video compressor so all compression should be done with another program.

If you have a mac, it becomes an even easier process, because you can import swf files into final cut pro and compress it via that.

But, windows is alot more time and hard drive consuming.

First of all, make sure there are absolutely no movieclips in your animation (as they will not be animated in the video)

then you simply go File > Export > Export Movie...

Then you choose AVI format and your filename... keep the movie dimensions as close to the original as possible, but if you're just exporting for youtube, then a width of 480 is fine.
do not compress the video, and keep audio to either 44KHz 16 or 8 bit stereo (unless your audio isn't stereo, then mono is fine also)

WARNING when i did this for my joker and the thief video, the final filesize was nearly 5gb, so just warning you if this is a problem.

After that you can use any video compressor program you want.

DVDVideoSoft has a great range of freeware video and audio programs, and are so simple, small, easy and above all trustworthy (free from spyware, virus and everything malicious)

so i used their program Video to Flash Converter to get the video into a FLV format. also, due to the way it was programmed, compresses the video to a filesize suitable for different video sites to stream, including MySpace Videos, YouTube, Google Video and whatever you want.

This brought my Joker video down to 30MB, which is fine by me, because its FLV when YouTube compresses it further not much will change and you still get the same high quality video at a smaller stream size (and doesn't compress it to a completely different compression format)

So that's it really, doing it this way will reward you with original quality video and audio ready to be watched on your favourite video streaming sites

I see. Big process, hehe

The fact that movieclips don't animate in video format is the number 1 killer for almost every single flash, because almost every flash artist that I know animates using lots and lots of animated movieclips to save time and space.

To get around this, you'd have take out the movieclip's frames and paste them on the layer that the movieclip would be on.

well, if all you're doing is animating, then you have no reason to use movieclips

so simply just turn all the movieclips in your library to graphic symbols and it should work exactly the same

and the process really isn't that big, there's only 2 steps to it... unless you're on a mac, then it's practically one step

Here's another method.
I affectionately call it 'Cheating'
The thing is, I've got camtasia, which can record your screen. It can adjust the recording, video dimensions and fps to your video, and it has editing capabilities. It'll record lossless, and save in almost any format.
So there, it's cheating, it's dirty, not really professional, and not really something you'd eagerly mention, but it gets the job done the easy way

yes, but it isn't very reliable though

it's just analogue recording, and everyone knows analogue recording is as useful and as outdated as VHS tapes

to make sure you're getting the best quality output, you really need to convert it digitally

the problem is, flash has the worst compression qualities so you need to digitally record it uncompressed and untouched

this benefits on more than one level though, because with an uncompressed video file... you have yourself a "mastertape" or rather a master file... you can use this to export to so many different medias and mediums, and delivering perfect quality

screen recording relies too much on hardware, and user conditions, so it may SOUND like a good and simple idea, but it's not... it's like bootlegging your own movie

Huh? Camtasia is good software. I'd point to any of my youtube stuff, but that's horribly compressed due to youtube, so that misses the point.

i am well aware of camtasia's capabilities, but you're missing my point

screen recording is only good if you're making a video of computer-user interaction

it doesn't matter how good the program is, it's still like taking a $50,000 HD camera to bootleg a movie in the cinemas

I haven't try using Camtasia before, but Moyea SWF to Video Converter is pretty good, but u gotta pay for it.

If not, then just like what RWS said, just turn all the movieclips to graphic symbols, thats what i usually do...