With so many movies on the net now in Flash format - including all those on YouTube - it's useful to have a program that can extract all the various elements that go into it for your own editing or storage purposes.

First of all, it's useful to distinguish between SWF and FLV. Basically, SWF is a native file which means it's a Flash object (i.e. a video/game or application) which is written natively in Flash and meant to be viewed or interacted with in a Flash player. FLV is quite simply a flash video player which means the buttons, progress bar, volume control and so on are all natively built in Flash but the video itself may have originated from any number of formats. The only way to extract the SWF files is with a decompiler such as this one - and a darn good job it does too. The interface is extremely user-friendly that even if you don't really understand the difference between the two formats but definitely need to extract a few elements, it takes you through it simply and quickly. The recovered files can then be opened and edited in Flash 6, 7 or 8 and for serious editors, 9-slice scaling and text analysis is also supported. Note that to capture the files, this program includes SWF Catcher which can save any Flash movies that you are viewing in Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Fast, easy to use and very effective, Sothink SWF Decompiler is an excellent and professional feeling solution for Flash editors.