Magic SWF2GIF is a tool that can convert SWF video files to the GIF format.

The user interface of the program can be difficult to understand at first, because some buttons do not contain self-explanatory text (you have to hover the mouse).

To get started, add one or several files to the queue (drag and drop is not supported), select output destination (from the Options menu), configure settings, and start converting.

You can view SWF properties (width, height, total frames, frame rate), add all SWF files in the Internet Explorer temporary directory (i.e. IE Cache), optimize the GIF to reduce size (at the cost of image quality), preview the SFW file, zoom in and out, or set its frame rate.

The encoding process needs plenty of time to complete (it depends on the size and quality of the SWF file). Magic SWF2GIF creates temporary files for each frame of the GIF file, deletes them once a job is successfully completed and creates a text file instead (called "test.txt"), one that contains a list of the temporary files.

We tested Magic SWF2GIF with a high-resolution SWF file of 9 minutes and 36 seconds. There were 450 frames created (that means 450 temporary files) in several minutes. The image quality of the output GIF is remarkable, although the clip is not as smooth as the source file. Also, since this is a bigger output file than your average 10-frame GIF, it takes an image viewer longer time to load it.

We cannot access TGA and BMP Sequences, as well as the help file from the Options menu, and Magic SWF2GIF popped up an error with empty text fields when we tried to select files in IE Cache. Toward the end of the conversion process, Magic SWF2GIF freezes for a few seconds, but then its state reverts to normal, so don't think the program crashed.

The bottom line is that Magic SWF2GIF is a decent tool for encoding SWF to GIF files, but it definitely needs to fix its various bugs, as well as improve its performance and interface design. Nevertheless, it gets the job done.