v5 Telestream Switch with 1-Year Premium Support
EDIT in Admin Edit in WPPlay, inspect, QC and correct all your media with Switch
Switch lets you play a variety of web and professional media formats, inspect and adjust the properties of the file, and then export a new file. Designed for media professionals, Switch enables visual file inspection, single file transcoding and is a complete software solution for professional media Quality Control.
Everything you need in one application
High-quality QC
With features such as professional audio meters with loudness monitoring, HDMI/SDI Output to an external monitor, easy media file comparison feature, and support for playback of captions, Switch Pro provides a complete software solution for professional media Quality Control.
Caption playback and verification
Play CEA-608 & CEA-708 captions, as well as SCC, DVB, TTML (iTT and SMPTE-TT) and WebVTT, SRT and STL subtitle files to verify timing and accuracy. Switch is the only software player with full support for CEA-708 caption decoding, including advanced 708-only features like Unicode character support. See MacCaption/CaptionMaker for caption creation.
Deep file inspection
Switch gives you frame-accurate playback of all your media and lets you see detailed information about it in an intuitive, well-organized interface. See metadata (including DPP), bitrate, video essence and codec, audio channels, speaker assignments, and loudness levels. Also compare multiple files in a single window – great for ABR workflows.
Windows Media Support
Enable playback and conversion of Windows Media content on your Mac! Switch is a fully licensed Windows Media playback tool for Mac and is able to convert Windows Media content into other formats compatible with your equipment. Switch Plus and Pro allow you to convert other media formats into Windows Media files for applications that require this format.
IMF/DCP Playback
Switch Pro now supports the playback of simple and complex IMF/DCP assets. Just load your CPL file, and let Switch do the heavy lifting. Your content will be automatically stitched together and played back seamlessly.
Switch Pro
Play, QC, fix and deliver. A complete solution for Broadcast and Media QC professionals. Includes all of the features of Switch Plus and adds more playback support, loudness monitoring, advanced metadata display, compare media feature, preview to an external monitor, and iTunes package export.
Switch Plus
Play, inspect and fix. Perfect for video editors and post-production professionals. Includes all of the features of Switch Player and adds more playback support, embedded caption playback, audio meters, new publishing destinations, and single file transcoding into all supported output formats (including Windows Media).
Not sure which Switch product you need?
Take a deep dive using the product comparison chart on the Details Tab.
Powerful, professional production features
Play It
Trust Switch for frame-accurate, smooth playback of all your media files, including captions and subtitles. Includes SDI out for external preview.
Check It
Inspect video properties, audio properties, captions, and subtitles. Includes loudness monitoring,
New! compare media feature, and Timeline view showing video GOP structure.
Fix It
Make changes: trim, scale or crop your media; rearrange audio tracks; change speaker assignments and rewrap or encode your media.
Deliver It
Use the iTunes preset to create asset-only iTunes store packages, or New! publish your media directly to Vimeo, YouTube, or Facebook.
Affordable high-quality QC
With features such as professional audio meters with loudness monitoring, HDMI/SDI Output to an external monitor, easy media file comparison feature, and support for playback of captions, Switch Pro provides an affordable software solution for professional media Quality Control.
Caption playback and verification
Play CEA-608 & CEA-708 captions, as well as SCC, DVB, TTML (iTT and SMPTE-TT) and WebVTT, SRT and STL subtitle files to verify timing and accuracy. Switch is the only software player with full support for CEA-708 caption decoding, including advanced 708-only features like Unicode character support. See MacCaption/CaptionMaker for caption creation.
Deep file inspection
Switch gives you frame-accurate playback of all your media and lets you see detailed information about it in an intuitive, well-organized interface. See metadata (including DPP), bitrate, video essence and codec, audio channels, speaker assignments, and loudness levels. Also compare multiple files in a single window – great for ABR workflows.
What’s new in Switch 5?
Switch 5 adds improved performance, Reduced Frame Decoding, ProRes RAW playback (Pro), IMF/DCP Package playback (Pro) & more.
Switch 5 is a free upgrade for Switch v4 customers who have Premium Support. For customers without Premium Support, Switch 5 is a paid upgrade.
Improved Performance
All versions of Switch now natively support Metal on macOS and Nvidia QuickSync on Windows for enhanced playback performance.
Reduced Frame Decoding
Decode and playback 4K/UHD media smoothly on lower-powered systems.
ProRes RAW Playback Pro Pro
ProRes RAW brings the same great performance, quality, and ease of use to raw video that ProRes has brought to conventional video. The Apple ProRes codec family provides unparalleled and impressive image quality preservation.
IMF/DCP Package Playback Pro Pro
Switch Pro now supports the playback of simple and complex IMF/DCP assets. Just load your CPL file, and let Switch do the heavy lifting. Your content will be automatically stitched together and played back seamlessly.
Description
Switch Plus | Switch Pro | |
---|---|---|
Play It | ||
Multiformat playback – formats include MOV, MP4, MXF, GXF, MPEG Program Streams & Transport Streams, and more | ||
Step, skip or jump forward/reverse, slow motion navigation including JKL navigation. Jump to a specific timecode, frame or time. | ||
Windows Media playback | ||
New! Reduced Frame Decoding – decode and playback 4K/UHD media smoothly on lower-powered systems | ||
New! Improved performance on both Windows and Mac with the ability to Index the file from scrub points | ||
New! Support for up to 64 audio tracks | ||
HEVC (H265), JPEG2000, DNxHD, DNxHR, AC3 playback | ||
CEA 608/708, Teletext (OP-42 & OP-47), SCC, MCC, DVB, TTML (iTT and SMPTE-TT) captions, and WebVTT, SRT, STL, Lambda CAP (Japanese) subtitle file playback | ||
New! ProRes RAW playback | ||
New! IMF/DCP Package playback | ||
Check It | ||
Team collaboration (Markers & Comments) | View | Create & Edit |
File properties: size, type, duration, metadata | ||
Video properties: format, bit rate, subsampling, color space, aspect ratio, Clean Aperture, and more | ||
Audio properties: audio channels, speaker labels, format, sample rate | ||
Professional audio meters displaying true-peaks and momentary loudness values | ||
Loudness monitoring panel displaying average momentary loudness, average short-term loudness, integrated loudness and loudness range | ||
Preview to external monitors via Blackmagic Design or AJA devices. Includes VANC data display | ||
Advanced inspection of application-specific metadata such as AS11 with UK DPP metadata, AS03, and others | ||
Compare Alternate Media: Load multiple versions of your media to compare frame by frame | ||
Timeline feature displaying video GOP structure and data rate information | ||
Fix It | ||
Export (See full export format support) | ||
Pass-through export | ||
Publish directly to Vimeo, YouTube, or Facebook | ||
New! Export to uncompressed “TIFO” format for further transcoding in our vantage software platform | ||
iTunes package preset including media content, secondary subtitle or audio files, chapter information and an XML file | ||
Support | ||
Complimentary Support Includes Knowledge Base, Telestream Community Forum and Social Media | ||
Premium Support Includes all features of Complimentary Support and adds Priority Response, Telephone Support, FREE software upgrades, Remote Access services | $50/year* | $110/year* |
*1st year Premium Support included in the purchase of Switch Plus and Switch Pro. |
Features
Play It
Plays any file format professionals care about
Trust Switch for frame-accurate playback of all your professional media files, including embedded captions and subtitles.
Multi-format playback support includes MXF; GXF; MPEG-2 Program Streams and Transport Streams; MOV; MP4, and more.
Switch can also play HEVC and 4K files, DNxHD, JPEG2000 and WMV (available in Switch Plus & Switch Pro, and available in Switch Player for Mac with Flip4Mac installed).
All the playback controls you expect
Switch has all the playback control features you’d expect in a professional player such as JKL navigation, fast forward and rewind, slow motion, as well as single-frame forward and back.
“Jump To” allows you to jump to a specific timecode, frame or time in your video.
Full caption support (Plus & Pro)
Switch will playback embedded CEA-608 & CEA-708 captions, as well SCC, DVB, TTML (iTT and SMPTE-TT captions) and WebVTT subtitle files. Switch is the only software player with full support for CEA-708 caption decoding, including advanced 708-only features like Unicode character support.
Switch will also decode captions from virtually all wrappers and formats, so you can verify captions within your MXF or Transport Stream file.
Check it
Inspect all the properties of your media file
Check video and audio properties such as audio channels, speaker labels, aspect ratio, clean aperture, bitrate, frame rate, metadata, encoding formats and more.
Add secondary files
You can also load secondary audio or closed caption files to check sync.
Audio Meters (Plus & Pro)
Use the Audio Meters to solo or mute audio channels, and inspect true peaks and momentarily loudness values. Switch Pro adds a loudness panel that calculates gated (BS.1770-3) or ungated (BS.1770-2) loudness levels.
Compare Alternate Media (Pro)
Compare Alternate Media lets you open additional media files to compare with your primary media file. Up to sixteen alternate media files can be opened. Once opened, all of the files are listed on the View > Alternate Media File menu where they can be shown in Full View, Split View or Difference View. Great for checking your multiple adaptive bitrate files in ABR workflows or easy comparison of multiformat media.
Timeline (Pro)
Use the Timeline feature to view the GOP structure of a video segment, highlighting the I, P, and B frames. You can also see the data rate information associated with the video.
Preview to external monitors (Pro)
Preview your files on a broadcast monitor or other devices. Switch Pro supports HDMI/SDI hardware output via AJA or Blackmagic Design devices for preview and quality check. Switch supports the Blackmagic Design SDK, and AJA Kona 4, Kona 3G, T-TAP, Io 4K, and Io XT.
Switch also adds the ability to view Vertical Ancillary (VANC) data on an external monitor.
DPP/AMWA Certified Player (Pro)
Switch Player lets you visually QC DPP files on the desktop, playing back the files as well as displaying DPP AS-11 MXF metadata.
Switch was among the first players to achieve DPP/AMWA certification as part of the DPP (Digital Production Partnership)’s Compliance Program.
Enough information but not too much
Switch displays all the relevant media information about your file in an intuitive, well organized interface. The inspector is deep enough to be meaningful, without giving users so much information that it becomes cumbersome.
Fix it
Make changes to your file and export (Plus & Pro)
By switching to edit mode, users can modify settings and export a new file. Switch lets you specify a new file format; a new video or audio codec; trim, scale or crop the video; add metadata (Pro only), and much more. Export to Apple ProRes*, Windows Media, H264, MPEG-2 Video, MP4, MPEG-2 program streams and transport streams.
*ProRes export on Windows only possible in iTunes packages using Switch Pro.
Powerful audio editing (Plus & Pro)
In the audio tab, you can split or join different audio tracks, rearrange audio tracks; change speaker assignments, then change the audio format and sample rate. Switch also supports downmixing: take a file with eight channels and mix it down to stereo.
Rewrap files (Plus & Pro)
Switch includes the ability to pass-through audio and video on export, or omit the video and export as an audio only file.
Deliver it
More Publishing Options: (Plus & Pro)
Export your video directly to Vimeo, YouTube, or Facebook from within Switch. Select export, choose your destination, and Switch will publish directly to your destination and save a local copy on your computer. Switch will create the appropriate files for your destination, taking the guesswork out of encoding and submitting content.
Streamlined creation of iTunes store packages (Pro)
Choose the iTunes export preset to create packages ready for distribution to the iTunes store. This creates an asset-only iTunes package file (a .itmsp file) which includes the media content, secondary subtitle or audio files, chapter information, and an XML file.
Windows Media Support
WMV and WMA Playback
All levels of Switch are able to decode and play back Windows Media Video and Audio (WMV and WMA).
Convert Windows Media to MP4
Switch Player is able to convert and export Windows Media content into an MP4 file using H.264 video and AAC audio. Once converted, these files will be natively supported on all devices without the need for a 3rd party tool.
Export to Windows Media
Switch Plus & Pro are able to convert and export other media formats into Windows Media files. These files will be natively supported on Windows but will require 3rd party software to be compatible with Mac computers.
QuickTime & Switch
QuickTime Video Codec Support and More
Switch supports all of the commonly used QuickTime video codecs, plus adds support for additional containers and codecs not used in the QuickTime media framework.
Media Inspection Plus Pro
Inspection of media properties, metadata, and encoding with greater detail than is possible in QuickTime Player X.
Captioning and Subtitles Plus Pro
Full caption and subtitle support for all professional video formats.
MOV Metadata Inspection Player Plus Pro
Switch can display the same QuickTime metadata found within MOV files as QuickTime Player, plus includes greater detail and additional inspection capabilities.
AJA and Blackmagic Support Pro
Switch is able to play back all supported content through AJA and Blackmagic playback cards to external displays and monitoring equipment.
System Requirements
Windows Minimum System Requirements
Operating Systems
- Windows 7 64-bit SP1
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 10
CPU
- 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo or faster.
- Any Core i3, i5, or i7
RAM
- 4 GB or more
Graphics
- Any graphics adapter that supports Direct3D feature level 10.1 or better
- 256 MB or more
Display
- 1280 x 768 or larger
- 50 Hz or faster
Mac Minimum System Requirements
Operating Systems
- macOS Big Sur 11
- macOS Catalina 10.15
CPU
- All Macs made in 2014 and later that support macOS 10.15 and higher
- 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo or faster.
- Any Core i3, i5, or i7
RAM
- 4 GB or more
Graphics
- 256 MB or more graphics memory
Display
- 1280 x 768 or larger
- 50 Hz or faster
*Note: Minimum specifications are the required hardware for playback of standard definition content.
Playback of demanding content such as 4K, HEVC, and high frame rate video may require more powerful hardware.
Playback Format Support
Containers:
- AAC
- AC31
- AIFF
- ASF1
- AVC (AVC Elementary Stream)
- AVI (OpenDML)
- DV
- GXF
- HEVC2 (HEVC Elementary Stream)
- IMF/DCP3
- LXF
- M1V (MPEG-1 Video Elementary Stream)
- M2V (MPEG-2 Video Elementary Stream)
- MOV
- MP3 (MPEG Layer 1, 2, 3 Audio Elementary Stream)
- MP4 (ISO Base Media Format)
- MPG (MPEG-1 System Stream)
- MPS (MPEG-2 Program Stream)
- MTS (MPEG-2 Transport Stream)
- MXF (AS-114 with UK DPP metadata)
- MXF (OP-1a; AS-02, AS-034, AS-114)
- MXF (OP-1a Proxy)
- MXF (OP-1b)
- MXF (OP-Atom)
- SCC5
- WAV
Video Codecs (decode only):
- Apple QuickTime Animation RLE6
- Apple ProRes
- Apple ProRes RAW3
- DNxHD1
- DNxHR1
- DV 25
- DVCPro 25
- DVCPro 50
- DVCPro 100
- DVCPro HD
- H.263
- H.264
- H.2651
- JPEG
- JPEG20001
- MPEG-1
- MPEG-27
- MPEG-4
- MPEG-4 Simple Studio Profile (SStP)
- Uncompressed YUV
- VP9
- WMV
Audio Codecs (decode only):
- AAC
- AC31
- G.711 aLaw
- G.711 uLaw
- G.726
- Microsoft ADPCM
- MPEG Audio Layer 1, 2, 3
- PCM
- WMA
Captions:
- Extraction and playback:
- CEA-608 & CEA-708
- DVB files
- SCC5 files
- SRT files
- STL files
- TTML /iTT and SMPTE-TT files
- WebVTT (HTML5) files
1 Not supported in Switch Player.
2 HEVC support of 8-bit 4:2:0 profiles in Elementary Streams, MPEG-2 Transport Stream or MP4 files.
3 Supported in Switch Pro only
4 Advanced inspection of application-specific metadata included in Switch Pro.
5 Currently supports export of .scc files as part of an iTunes asset-only package.
6 Currently supports 24-bit and 32-bit only.
7 Not supported in Switch Player for Windows.
Encode Format Support1
Containers:
- ASF
- MOV
- MPEG-2 TS/PS
- MPEG-42
- MXF (OP-1a, OP-Atom)
Video Codecs:
- Apple ProRes3
- MPEG-2 Video
- WMV
- x264
Audio Codecs:
- AAC
- MPEG Layer 2
- PCM
- WMA
1 Export is available for Plus and Pro only.
2 Switch Player is able to convert and export Windows Media content into an MP4 file using H.264 video and AAC audio.
3 ProRes export on Windows only possible in iTunes packages using Switch Pro.
iTunes Package Export
Creates an asset-only iTunes package file (an .itmsp file) which includes media content, secondary subtitle (.iTT or .scc files) or audio files, chapter information and an XML file. iTunes packages can only be created using the ProRes 422 HQ profile.
DPPAMWADPP/AMWA Certified Player
Switch can visually QC DPP files on the desktop, playing back the files as well as displaying DPP AS-11 MXF metadata.
Change Log
What’s new in Switch v5 (August 24, 2021)
IMPROVEMENTS
- ProRes RAW decoding (Pro)
- DCP/IMF Playback (Pro)
- Hardware accelerated decoding (all versions)
- Reduced scale decoding option (all versions)
- Ability to export media as TIFO (Plus and Pro)
- Ability to skip indexing for faster media load times (all versions)
- Dolby-E passthrough via SDI (Pro)
- Support for up to 64 tracks of audio (all versions)
- Switch Engine API available for 3rd party integration (Pro)
- Improved verbosity of displayed alerts from Vidchecker (Pro)
FIXES
- Improved readability in Dark Mode (all versions, Mac)
- AC-3 loudness measurement accuracy improved (Pro)
- V-Chip code detection accuracy improved (all versions)
- Multiple improvements and fixes to Telestream Media Framework (all versions)
KNOWN ISSUES
General
- Frames with long durations make time display appear to stall because it always shows the presentation time of the frame.
- ASF files with variable frame rate display incorrect frame rate in the inspector.
- No detection of interlaced content is done for Windows Media files.
- Cavena 890 subtitles not supported.
- Opening a ProRes RAW media file with Switch 5.0 on a Windows 10 system with a NVIDIA Quadro P1000 graphics card might return an unsupported video format message. If so, this is caused by an outdated version of the NVIDIA Quadro P1000 graphics driver. To resolve the issue, update the graphics driver to the latest available version.
Windows
- Ancillary LTC timecode is not pass when using the KONA 4G with the 4K driver.
- Ancillarry LTC timecode is not passed while seeking/scrubbing.