Converting ARF to WMV and MP4 - please help!

[ledouglas]

Hello,

We are hoping to use WebEx to record training videos, and I was excited to see the "new" cability to convert ARF files to MP4 and WMV in a much easier way than the past and without the 'tinny' noise.  Great job, Cisco!

Can someone help with my questions/issues below?  We have to make this go live on Friday!

FIRST QUESTION

So we recorded our first video and it turned out great.  We put slides fullscreen which looked great for readability, however when I converted the ARF to WMV and MP4 some of the desktop shows under the slides.  So the slides are no longer shown full screen and it is harder to view them and distracting.

Please see the attached screen shots which show:

1. what i see when I view the downloaded ARF recording (it shows slides full screen)
2. what i see after I converted ARF to WMV  (it shows the teal background below the slides now, instead of slides full screen like ARF)
3. what i see after I converted ARF to MP4 (it shows the teal background below the slides now, instead of slides full screen like ARF)

I am on a PC running Windows 7 Enteprise Service Pack 1.  I am using the Network Recording Player to open the ARF and convert. I guess we just have the standard Meeting Center.

Can I convert ARF to WMV or MP4 and not have that distracting/unattractive desktop show up?  I want it to be like the ARF looks.

SECOND QUESTION

I need to edit out some sections of the video (the beginning and ending so have a clean start and end plus an outlook alert popped up in the middle of the presentation accidentally that we need to edit out).  I see that Cisco provides a "WebEx Recording Editor" for editting WRF files but I have not found the same for ARF files.  Does an editor for ARF exist?  Or do I convert this to MP4 or WMV and then import into iMovie or some other third party editor to do the changes?

THIRD QUESTION

When I record the output is ARF.  That is the only format.  I don't see a WRF format.  Can I get both an ARF and WRF format in future?

Thanks, in advance, for any and all help!

Laura Douglas

Good Technology

Message was edited by: Laura Douglas Miro, here are the screen shots. My bad that I forgot to attach them.

[alfredjack714]

Maybe you can try Adoreshare iMovie Video Converter, this program I have used supports almost all video formats.

[angiecaopullops1]

ARF, standing for “advanced recording file”, is a file extension for a WebEx advanced

recording file from a network-based recording. An ARF file contains the video data, a table

of contents, an attendee list, and other information on separate panels. The ARF file

extension is for recordings downloaded by the user. The ARF file extension is also used for

automatic response files. The *.arf files are WebEx recordings directly downloaded by the

user.

However, we often meet problems when open or play ARF files. To open or play ARF files with

zone problems, it is nice to convert ARF to MP4, convert ARF to WMV, MP3 or other common

video and audio formats.You may find a nice guide on how to convert ARF to MP4, convert ARF to WMV, MP3 here.

[andrew.duggan]

Sorry to reply to an old thread but it seems to be the only one on this topic.  I'm having the same issue as original poster.  If anyone has a solution to allow conversion to MP4 without compression of the video size, it would be greatly appreciated.

[prishicare]

Most of the converters do not support converting ARF files.

To convert ARF files, you'd better to get WebEx Network Recording Player which can help convert ARF files to WMV, MP4, SWF. Fist of all, you need to import ARF files to the software.

• To convert ARF to MP4, click “File” -> “Convert Format” -> “MP4 (MPEG-4)…”.
• To convert ARF to WMV, click “File” -> “Convert Format” -> “WMV (Windows Media)…”.
• To convert ARF to MP4, click “File” -> “Convert Format” -> “SWF (Flash)…”.

Then get a common converter to convert MP4, WMV, SWF to other formats that you need.

But I know a tool that really can extract MP3, WAV, M4A, etc from ARF without the help of WebEx Network Recording Player.

Hope this will help you more or less.

[erik.busk]

It seems to my that this thread has been hijacked a few times over the years, drifting off from the original question.

I still encounter the same problems as the original poster did in 2014 which, to me, is a bit odd.

The "green zone" first appears on the right when watching it in WebEx-player, and after conversion to mp4 the "green zone" appears at the bottom. During the conversion the screen is also compressed with the result that the data is harder to read. I ended up editing the video in iMovie to get rid of the green zone at the bottom, but that still did not fix the problem with the compressed "working area"

Is the only viable solution to change the screen resolution when recording? Has anyone solved this?

I love the WebEx solution for collaboration, but when it comes to recoring a session and working with the files it still huge room for improvement.

[robert.mcleish]

Hear, hear, Erik!

The "green zone" is still a weakness of the recording feature in WebEx. A feature which most everyone wishes to use at some point. It's worth considering that not everyone can restrict their WebEx session to presenting PowerPoint. I work in Legal Technology education in a team of just 5 trainers covering a global law firm. So much of what we do is delivered over WebEx and with such a small head count in our team we obviously need to provide recorded sessions.

I'm just amazed that this still hasn't been adequately addressed at some point over the last 2 or 3 years. I will do my own research and if I find a reliable work around that results in a video I wouldn't be frankly embarrassed to put out, I'll be sure to post it on here.

[ronaldbrown1]

Along the same lines -- when the video is converted the quality sucks and is not smooth motion.

When will this be fixed, is there a 3rd party tool that does a better job?

[Birdman1967]

I'm with Ron.. I've given up. Time to find another program.

[sathishkumar1]

In the new release, WebEx provides the recordings in MP4 format instead of ARF format. Please do check with your account manager for version upgrade.

[johns10t]

Keep in mind that this is currently only available in Meeting Center, and is WBS 32.5 as far as the release this is available in. Those who had CMR enabled for Meeting Center already had this capability, but now it seems that all sites have the ability to request it.

[melitakund]

Hello, the WebEx Player is mainly used to stream and watch recordings of its sessions which were made by you in the form of presentation or received a web address in your mail. Its supported file types are.ARF for any OS. You can also edit the .ARF file and convert it into WMV file format by using WebEx Recording Editor. In addition, some video format converters may play a role, such as Any Video Converter Free, free HD video converter factory, etc....