How to Convert ARF to MP4 – Make Your WebEx Recording More Compatible

Updated Dec 18,2018 | by Micky

Question: : “I just downloaded a recording of my WebEx online conference and it’s in ARF. The video can’t be played on Windows Media Player or VLC. Is there anybody who can tell me how to convert ARF to MP4 which is more compatible?”

If you always have online meetings, you won’t be unfamiliar with WebEx – an online conferencing program by Cisco.

With WebEx, you can invite people around the world to your room and host an online conference face to face. As a host, you can download the meeting’s recording from WebEx’s server and it will be automatically saved in .arf – Advanced Recording File, a proprietary video format of WebEx.

Basically, ARF can’t be viewed on any other third-party platforms like WMP, VLC, or on your portable devices but only on WebEx Player and WebEx Recording Editor which is definitely inconvenient.

After hearing many complaints from users of WebEx, in the following article, I will introduce a powerful ARF to MP4 converter to make this sort of video file more playable.

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The program WebEx Network Recording Player is used for both ARF video playback and conversion. With it, you can convert the ARF video to WMV, SWF, and MP4. However, if you want MP4 to be the output format, another tool must be installed and your Media Access Control Address will be stored in WebEx’s server for tracking. The process can be rather complicated for beginners and in this case, it’s not recommended to convert ARF to MP4 with Network Recording Player.

To begin with, let’s convert the video to WMV.

1.       Launch Network Recording Player and click on “File” on the upper left.

2.       Click “Open” to import the ARF file to the interface. After the video is added, it will begin to play automatically and then, you need to click on “Pause” to stop it.

3.       Click on “File” again, select “Convert Format”, and choose “WMV” to be the output format. Then, you will be prompted to preset an output folder and “Conversion Start Time”.

4.       Click on “OK” to start the conversion. The time it takes relies on the length of the recording. So, you must be patient. 

A Related Reading You May Like: How to Convert WMV to MP4

As we can see, Network Recording Player lays a big limitation on video conversion. It’s difficult to convert ARF to more compatible formats like MP4 and AVI but only to WMV and SWF. So, what if you really need to convert .arf to those common formats in order to play the recording on standard media players or portable devices like iPhone and iPad?

Here, I recommend IOTransfer, a functional video conversion and iPhone transfer program.

IOTransfer provides you with more than 20 video formats including MP4, AVI, MOV, MKV for a fast video conversion and meanwhile, with clicks, you can transfer the converted videos to both your PC and iOS devices.

More than video conversion, IOTransfer also allows you to create GIFs, download videos, and clean your iPhone and iPad with ease.

It’s time to free try this most easy-to-use ARF MP4 converter. Just click on the download link below.

Convert ARF to MP4 with Only 3 Steps

Step 1 Connect Your iDevice to PC

Install and launch IOTransfer, connect your iPhone or iPad to PC and wait until the device gets recognized by the program. When you see the notification “Trust This Computer” on your device’s display, tap on “Trust” to continue.

Step 2 Preparation before the ARF to MP4 Conversion Begin

Click on “VIDEOS” in the top toolbar. In the opened page, click on “Converter” on the left. Then, click on “+ Add Files” to import the WMV that’s generated in Part 1 and choose MP4 as the output format. Then, tick off the option “ Automatically transfer the converted video into your iDevice” and don’t forget to preset an output path.

Step 3 Start the Video Conversion

Click on the blue button “Convert Now” to start the video conversion. When the progress bar is 100%, you must wait until the loop circling around the iPhone icon stops. Then, you can find the MP4 video in both the folder you previously set and the video App on your iPhone/iPad.

Bottom Line

What is the best ARF to MP4 converter? Hopefully, after reading the tutorial, you’ve learnt a good way to deal with ARF file which has a really bad compatibility with third-party players and devices.

In all, firstly, you should convert the ARF file to WMV with WebEx’s inbuilt video converter. And secondly, find another third-party software like IOTransfer to convert the WMV file to MP4 or other common formats.

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