And now for something …

Anyone who has used GoToMeeting to record a webinar will quickly find that the default GoToMeeting format is not a true WMV file (even though the extension is .wmv).  Instead, GTM uses a custom format, most likely because it’s more efficient to record in this format while you are conducting a web meeting.  Whatever the case, this is a real problem when trying to edit the webinar in another program such as Camtasia.  Often it will result in an error like

Error: No codec available to render this file.

or

The requested video codec is not installed on this system

There is an option in GoToMeeting to record in standard .WMV format, but chances are a) you didn’t know about it before you recorded your meeting and b) even if you did enable it, it takes a lot of time to convert the file, so you might not have the time (or patience) to convert it immediately after your meeting is over.

Geek Factor has some interesting solutions, here and here, but they don’t necessarily work.

Fortunately, there is a solution that worked for me — use an application from GoToMeeting called “g2mtranscoder” which allows you to convert the file from GTM format to standard WMV.    Here’s how I did it in Windows 7:

1. Navigate to your GoToMeeting program files folder.  Typically this will be in C:\Program Files\Citrix\GoToMeeting\320.
2. Copy your GoToMeeting recording to this directory.
3. Open the command line.  On Vista / Windows 7, click the Start button and in the search box type: cmd and press Enter; in Windows XP, click the Start button, select Run, and type: cmd and press Enter.
4. Type: cd C:\Program Files\Citrix\GoToMeeting\320\ and press Enter.  This should take you to the GTM directory.
5. Type: g2mtranscoder source=GoToMeetingRecording.wmv (replace with the name of your GTM video).

Hint: you can copy and paste into the command line window by clicking the C:\ icon from the command line window and selecting Edit > Paste.

Once the conversion has completed, simply open the file in Camtasia using File > Import Media, or use your favorite video editing software.