Switch

Why spend $40 on this when you can get a much higher quality FREE app that does the same with more formats? Try X Lossless Decoder (XLD), you'll be glad you did.

Worth Paying for. Very Happy

Worthless program that does nothing but generate error messages. Misleadingly labeled 'free for home use' version. Support is just as useless as the app; they want $$ to even answer a question. One star is giving them the benefit of the doubt but it's the least I can give. Read the reviews. Don't waste your time.

The audio normalization doesn't work on the Mac side. You simply get a file with no audio. When I booted up in'Windows 7 (via boot camp), I installed the PC version of the software and the normalization feature worked perfectly. I contacted their support staff and will update you on their progress.

This is version 4.71 NOT 4.75!

I shall not continue to use this software. They seem to want to charge huge amounts for small upgrades. Then do not keep their versioning updated so that it works with MU. Pity. They're just pricing themselves out of the market :-(

Here is an open letter I just wrote to NCH Software. My email contained screen captures to prove my assertions, but NCH Software makes it extremely difficult to contact them in any normal fashion: no email address is listed anywhere on their website, which supports BigJohnson's assertion that tech support is "appalling." So is sales and marketing for that matter. Be careful dealing with this operation.
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NCH Software:

I guess that the English language must get subverted when it travels south of the equator! Either that, or your company has a policy of blatantingly lying about the capabiliies of your software.

I already detest your upgrade policy, in which you expect customers to pay again for very minor changes (if any at all) in your applications after only a few months of use. I have stopped upgrading because too many problems ensue when your “updated” version breaks the serialization scheme. No other software development in the world uses such a complcated, paranoid, greedy softwar-upgrading system as you, and I have exposed your practice on MacUpdate.com for other potential customers to take into consideration before getting involved with you.

But to catch you lying on the Internet during a Google search! That’s a new low!

I refer to a Google search for “audio converter dss to mp3.” You Google Adword ad puts you at the top of the list, and you declare: “Easily convert dss audio dictations to wav or mp3 or a PC or a Mac. Works on Windows and Mac.”



Now, I don’t know how Australian English interprets those words, but in America, this reader interprets it as saying that, if I use you Switch audio converter program on a Mac, I will be able to directly convert the Olympus proprietary format called “dss” to a much more universally recognized format caled “mp3.” Am I missing something here? I think not.

Of course, the problem is that, after one tries out either the free version or the paid version of Switch, this assertion turns out to a lie. A falsehood! A fabrication. Whenever I have tried to perform such a conversion of DSS files to mp3 on a Mac, I get an error message telling me that the files are empty, blank, devoid of data, despite the fact that the Finder tells me that there may be MB of data in the DSS file, just waiting to be heard and/or converted.

The amazing thing is that, on the website page ( http://www.nch.com.au/switch/kb/1405.html )where you conveniently provide a list of formats which are suppored by Switch, you admit that Switch will NOT convert DSS files. This admission of truth invalidates the Google ad for the product, in which you claim that Switch can perform such a conversion on a Mac, whille, in fact, it cannot.



Closer up shows this:



Of course, why, after all these years you have not yet bothered to implement such a feature is beyond me, since you attempt to be friendly and ask us to tell you what features you would like added to your products’ capabilities. You would think that, if you were operating an ethical company, you would either not advertise capabilities which your software does not possess, or you would make good on your claim and actually set your mind to implement a feature that you intutively know will suck customers to visit your web and try out your software.

However, since I glean an underlying patina of low integrity informing your business practices, I have elected to provide you with this feedback in the hopes that you will take this whack on the side of head and improve your face to the world by taking corrective action:
(1) Stop lying.
(2) Stop claiming that your software can do things which it cannot, OR implement your software with the power you claim it has now.
(3) Get real about your abominable and greedy software upgrade practices. No customer likes to be milked every 3 months of so by having to pay for a minor tweak to your applications. I certainly won’t support such a practice, and, now that I caught you lying, I won’t be supporting you in any other monetary way ever again.

Support is appalling! Took more than a year to get an appropriate answer to my support request. I had run into some FLAC files that Switch could not convert. The first reply (2-6-13) said "Could you please install the necessary codecs please go to this link download: http://www.perian.org/" As if I'm supposed to rely on another developer's software to make Switch do its job! Throughout the next year there were MANY emails sent to Nch. On 1-22-14 I got this incorrect reply from them: "WMA codification is proprietary of Microsoft Windows and Switch is not able to convert this type of files, even after installing the respective codecs to have he system be able to reproduce the files Switch wont be able to work with WMA files." Really? The website says it DOES convert wma! I emaild replied back for veification and received this answer: "Yes, WMV and WMA are video and audio (respectively) that are proprietary of Microsoft Windows. Any other unprotected sound format is supported by Switch." I sent them an angry email, and received this response: "I apologize, I think my fellow agent might have made an assumption here that isn't true. Switch Mac does indeed support .WMA files as long as they are not copy protected. I've tested this with a number of files from the internet and it worked fine. As for your file, it does not appear to be copy protected either, so it's not that. It looks like just a bug in the application, there must be some setting or encoding unique to that set of .wma files that is breaking us right now, and I apologize for that. I have opened a bug using your sample file, and if you'd like, I can add you to a watch-list so you can be emailed when a build fixing this is released. At that time if you return to this support ticket and ask for Rob, I'd be happy to give you a free upgrade to that newest version." Stupid support staff doesn't even know which file types their apps support! This issue wasted a lot of my time, and caused a lot of aggravation. And to date, they STILL haven't released a bug-fix! Obviously they aren't too concerned about their software's failings. FWIW, XLD was also unable to convert those same files. I was able to successfully convert them using iSonics, but it doesn't offer a compression setting, so I don't know which FLAC level it used.

As a demo, Switch provides the same full functionality as the "plus"version which you must pay for, else Switch gets turned off, i.e., its demo period expires. The good thing about Switch is that it does a good job of converting a wide variety of formats. Among other things, I got it years ago to convert a propriety format that Olympus uses in their digital voice recorders to mp3 files. It also has a very nice batch feature which lets you convert a whole shebang of files in one shot. The bad thing about Switch is the rather dodgy updating feature and pricing scheme. NCH makes no bones about wanting to grab your money any way they can. They don't wait until a full version number is released on a product for which very little development is done between minor. If my memory serves me correctly, if you happen to download the next incremental update, which can occur in about three-month intervals, you have wiped out the correlation between your original serial number and the .point upgrade version, and the minor tweak will cost you. Word to the wise, if you get this software: never lose the original download and its serial number, just in case you fall victim to this unfriendly updating scheme. NCH tells you upfront—as if it's a disclaimer—that if you happen to lose your serial number, it's all your fault, and they will not bother to send you your original serial number, or they can't for one absurd reason or another, due to some alleged inability to keep track of their customer's records. In short, then: good software, but lousy, sub-standard tech support and licensing scheme.

Hello All, Please be careful, switch is no longer for free and is misleading everyone . So MacUpdate must set it as shareware or MSH must stop this misleading.

NCH's website has a link for a "free" version of Switch for non-commercial use; however, it is just the same trial/demo version that stops working after a while. I installed this "free" version at one time and then later tried to use it to no avail, getting a message that the demo trial time was up. That alone was reason enough to send the app and all its little rat pellets sprinkled about my system to dev/null's-ville.

With the advent of MediaHuman Audio Converter, I can't see any reason for this software as it offers nothing over its competitors, some of which are free.

This app has worked like a gem for a while, but now it crashes every single time I try to convert a wma to anything else. I have the latest flip4mac, latest switch and the latest OS. It will convert other formats, just not wma. The only error on console is "exited abnormally: bus error". Anyone else having problems?

Tried converting a small .wma to mp3: "Unable to encode files in the selected format" .mov to mp3? "Unable to encode files in the selected format" .aiff to .mp3? "Unable to encode files in the selected format" What a piece of crap!!

I received an album of files in ogg format. First time I encountered this file type. Switch converted to mp3 quick and easy. Added to iTunes library with no problem. The user interface is easy to understand - I especially liked the feature that allows you to select the bitrate for encoding.

What is that Internet connection the app tries to make? What's downloading? Couldn't find any documentation about it, but LittleSnitch told me about it!

A new version - 1.40 - is available at the developer site. Great application! Many thanks.

Worked for me to convert a little .wma that a musician from Denmark sent me.

Just wondering what good the free version is, when you can do this with iTunes and/or Quicktime for free?

Works perfectly on my iBook G4 (WMA -> MP3 using MacOSX 10.4.9)