how to import gotomeeting wmv recordings into camtasia studio, part 2
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I’ve received a few comments and emails in response to my previous post, how to import gotomeeting wmv recordings into camtasia studio. In several cases, folks trying to get their GoToMeeting and/or GoToWebinar WMV recordings imported into Camtasia using this method run into an error message stating:
"The requested video codec is not installed on this system"
In my experience, this is caused by trying to work with a WMV file in GoToMeeting format, as opposed to a plain Windows Media Player file. Huh?? Well, as it turns out, GTM/GTW produces two different types of recordings, both of which are saved as WMV files.
To add to the confusion, Citrix makes a GoToMeeting codec available that any reasonable person would suppose would fix the “codec is not installed” error. Not! The reason they make it available is so that people can play the GTM files without installing the entire GTM software package. I’m not sure of the technical reasons for this, but the only thing I’ve ever seen able to use those files is Windows Media Player itself. I imagine it has something to do with DirectShow Filters or some such.
To maximize compatibility and usability you should select the “Convert to Windows Media Player file” option in the “Recording” section of the GTM Preferences panel. I think the only reason the “Record in GoToMeeting format” option is even presented is because to produce the more compatible file literally does take an extra conversion step that can take a long time depending on the length of your recording and how powerful your PC is.
So what do you do if you’ve got a file in the GoToMeeting format and you want to use it in Camtasia? Good question!
I tried a bunch of the old standby tools (WM Encoder and Stream Editor, VirtualDub, etc.) just for kicks and didn’t have any success with a GTM file. I was able to get the video cleaned up by running the file through WM Encoder and then through Stream Editor, but VirtualDub choked on the WMA V2 audio.
I haven’t tested this, but if I were in this situation and exhausted all other options, I’d try to open up the file in Windows Media Player and use Camtasia to record the screen as if you were making a screen capture. Audio is the main challenge in this scenario, since you don’t want to record from your speakers to your microphone. A physical patch cable from the headphone jack to line-in may be one option, but not perfect since the digital-to-analog and analaog-to-digital processes are both lossy/noisy.
In the days of XP it used to be pretty easy to do an “audio loopback” aka “Stereo Mix” aka “Wave Out Mix” in which you’d tell the computer to record directly from the soundcard, but this option is getting hard to find in Vista because it can be used to circumvent DRM. You may have a soundcard that still supports supports stereo mix, in which case you’d enable it via the control panel. If not, Google around and you may be able to find an XP version of your soundcard driver that will work in compatibility mode. There are also a number of commercial software options that claim to enable audio loopback. Virtual Audio Cable is one that I came across.
(A couple of other thoughts: Citrix support may have a tool be willing to provide a tool to do the conversion after-the-fact, or they may have an idea of what tools can do it. Also, it may be possible to trick GTM into doing it for you by swapping the file you want to convert with a new one just as GTM is about to convert it, but the timing will be tricky 
In any case, good luck, and let us know how you fare!
