Switch supports most professional media formats including UHD and 4K resolutions and Dolby Digital Plus. Please see the Switch User Guide for a complete list of supported video and audio formats.

Open the Composition Playlist (CPL) file from the Interoperable Master Format (IMF) package. This will load both the video and audio as primary media. Switch can play simple CPL files (one segment). Support for complex CPL files has been added but is watermarked because the feature is under development.

Export to an iTunes Store Package and the primary media file will contain both audio and video. Secondary audio tracks for other languages are stored in secondary files within the package.

Users can also open the MXF OP-Atom MPEG2 or JPEG-2000 video then go to the File menu and select Open Secondary Audio File to playback the MXF video and audio files together.

AJA Kona 4, Kona 3G, T-TAP, Io 4K, and Io XT have been qualified in Switch. Connected devices are displayed under the View menu. All Blackmagic capture cards and devices are supported according to Blackmagic Design’s SDK.

External Preview requires a Switch Pro license and has the option to output VANC data to external monitor via SDI.

Switch supports reading and playing of growing media files produced by Telestream’s Live Capture, Vantage, and Pipeline products.

Enable the “Watch for growing files” checkbox in Switch Preferences in order to preview, edit, monitor, and QC files as they are growing. Indexing behavior has not changed in the Switch Timeline. You’ll see black where the video has not completely downloaded.

Switch Pro supports Avid DNxHD and DNxHR playback, inspection, and pass-through exports.

Switch plays all compressed QuickTime formats not requiring a third party component. Switch also supports Apple MXF and ProRes XQ decode on Mac and Windows.

A Switch Player license is needed to play Windows Media and export to MP4. A Switch Plus or Pro license exports to other formats. Switch 4.5 exports WMV.

Switch plays HEVC within an MP4 container or MPEG2 Transport Stream.

Remote Desktop or Amazon EC2 users must enable an Aero theme with RDP and install an audio device on the remote machine. For details, please see Configuration for Remote Desktop Protocol and EC2.

Switch Plus and Switch Pro display CEA-608 and CEA-708 closed captioning embedded in the video as well as Teletext subtitles. Go to the View menu and select Show Subtitles / Closed Captions. CEA-608 selections are CC1-CC4. CEA-708 selections are Service 1–Service 6. Teletext selections are Page 801, 802, 888, 889 or Other. Users can enter a page number between 101-999 (inclusive) when selecting Other. The Secondary Subtitle also appears under this menu and must be selected to view it.

Go to the File menu and select Open Secondary Subtitle File to playback Scenarist Closed Caption format (.SCC) and iTunes Timed Text (iTT) subtitles. Other supported Secondary Subtitle formats are Lambda .CAP (Japanese subtitles) .MCC, .PAC, Subrip (.SRT) and .STL subtitles, HTML5 WebVTT (.vtt) and TTML (.xml) files.

Switch exports .SCC and .iTT files to the iTunes Store Package along with the metadata. Closed captioning is not embedded in the video.

The Flag feature for QC lets you choose where to flag a section of your video by setting start and end points. Flags can be set by time, frame, or timecode. Show Timeline, then go to the Edit menu to ’Add Flag’ and ‘Set Flag Out’. Use the Flags tab in the Inspector to inspect the flags placed in your media and add Titles. Flags can also be edited and color coded yellow, orange or red for errors. The Control menu has an option to inspect all the Flags by Title. Users can go directly to that point or select ‘Next Flag’ and ‘Previous Flag’. Media with Flags can be exported and re-opened. See the Export menu (Flags) and File menu (Open Flags File). File extension is .flags.

Switch Pro 4.5 adds the ability to export the Inspector information to a Text file or a JSON file. Go to the Export menu and select Inspector Info.

Switch 4.5 displays guidelines for Safe Areas. Safe Action, Safe Title, and Safe Caption overlays can be displayed individually or at the same time via the View > Safe Areas menu.

When enabled, a white box with a unique line pattern is drawn over the video in the player window showing the bounds inside which essential action, titles, and/or captions should be contained according to SMPTE standards.

Enable ‘Show Playback Statistics’ under the View menu to add an overlay that displays playback frame rate, queue fill percentages, and the number of dropped frames (if any).

Enable ‘Show Frame Metadata’ under the View menu to add an overlay that displays a list of metadata attached to the currently displayed frame, including various types of timecode or captions and Active Format Description codes. Some attached metadata may not be supported by Switch, and therefore will not be displayed.

Select Show Timeline under the Switch Pro View menu to see GOP structure. Switch displays I, P, and B frames. I-frames are self-referential. P-frames look backwards. B-frames are bi-directional and look both ways. The timeline has an option to view a data rate curve as well as GOP. Interlacing option determines how to display interlaced video frames on your progressive computer monitor. Select which method to use: Weave Fields, Blend Fields, Split Fields, Field 1, or Field 2. Weave fields is the default. It shows the original frame (2 fields).

Go to the View menu. Select Time Display > Timecode.

Click the timecode in the lower left corner of the player. Switch 4.5 displays all timecodes available in the file. User can select which embedded timecode to display by default or specify “Made by Switch” timecode which is zero-based.

Open the primary media file and select Compare Alternate Media under the Switch Pro File menu. Alternate Media Files are listed under the View menu after opening. Select Alternate Media Display to compare the files. Split View displays the selected alternate media file in a split, overlapping window with a sliding bar. Difference View displays the pixel difference between your primary media and the selected alternate media file. The videos are composited into a single black and white signal. Differences between the two videos will appear as highlights on a black backdrop.

The inspector displays the color primaries, matrix coefficients, and transfer characteristics that make up a colorspace, and in edit mode, allow the user to change each. These properties are included in a detail view accessible via the button to the right of the colorspace. They are hidden by default.

Users can select a known colorspace to automatically populate the color primaries, matrix coefficients, and transfer characteristics. If the user changes any of those settings so that they do not match a known colorspace, the colorspace popup will change to "Unknown". If the user changes any of those settings so that they do match a known colorspace, the colorspace popup will be updated to reflect it.

In the Container Inspector, click the Gear Icon next to Metadata. Select "Show XML Metadata Content". On the Mac, Safari will automatically launch and display DPP XML metadata as one long string by default. Go to the Safari menu and select Preferences Advanced. Check the box labeled "Show Develop menu in menu bar". Close window. Safari will retain that setting for future inspection in Switch. In the Switch Container Inspector, click the Gear Icon next to Metadata. Select "Show XML Metadata Content". Safari will display DPP XML metadata in hierarchical format as a document tree.

Switch exports Apple ProRes 422, 422 (HQ), 422 (LT) 422 (Proxy) and ProRes 4444. Other video codecs for MOV are H.264 and H.262 (MPEG-2 IMX and XDCAMHD). Other container options are MP4, TS, MPG, MXF (OP-1a, OP-Atom, and AS-11) and WMV. There is a pass-through export option for other formats. ProRes is only available on Windows within iTunes Store Packages.

In the Audio Inspector, select Export. Click the plus (+) sign to add another track. Select Channels to configure audio and speaker assignments. Click the Gear icon to join or split tracks.

Open video. Go to the File menu and select Open Secondary Audio File. Go to the Window menu. Select Show Inspector. Toggle Inspect mode to Export mode. Edit video and audio transcoder settings if needed.

Trim option is available under the Time tab and is frame accurate.

Chapter marker option is available under the Time tab for iTunes Store Packages. Currently, Switch does not import existing Final Cut Pro chapter markers or export movies with embedded chapter markers.

Switch runs on 64-bit Windows operating systems.

Hardware: Switch for Windows requires a video adapter or graphics card that supports Direct3D feature level 10.1 or higher and a processor that supports the SSSE3 instruction set. A 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo or faster and at least 4 GB RAM is recommended.

Software: Switch requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 and Windows Media Foundation.

Windows 7 users need to install Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and the Platform Update. Platform Update was released with Windows 8.

Web link to download Platform Update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36805
File name: Windows6.1-KB2670838-x64.msu.

Go to File menu - Preferences - Display. Disable hardware rendering. Relaunch Switch. With hardware rendering enabled in preferences, Switch will try to use the primary display GPU. If the video adapter does not support DirectX, disabling that preference setting will allow Switch to fall back to software rendering.

Switch uses Lanczos scaling on OS X 10.11. This high quality scaling for video playback is enabled by default in Switch preferences. You may need to disable it for smooth UHD full screen 24 fps playback on your monitor. Otherwise, shrink the display to keep up with the frame rate.

There are several models of MacBook Pro with two GPUs. One is integrated (lower performance) and the other is discrete (high performance). The OS is supposed to switch to the discrete card when a power source is connected and use the integrated card when running on battery. However, in some instances the OS may use the integrated card even when plugged in. This can severely affect playback performance in Switch. To disable the integrated card:

• Go to System Preferences > Energy Saver.
• Uncheck the checkbox next to "Automatic graphics switching".
• Restart the computer.

Please wait until the play bar has finished indexing before playing or scrubbing.

Go to Preferences and disable desktop display if external preview is enabled and you are playing via SDI to an external monitor.

Hold down the Shift key while launching Switch to clear the recent media list. Crash could have occurred while Switch was trying to index the same file that had been open previously, in order to get a thumbnail for the welcome dialog's recent media list.

Please submit a support inquiry to Desktop Support.

You will receive an automated e-mail with the case number. Go to the Switch Help menu and select Gather Support Information. Enter your case number and click OK. This will gather engineering logs into a zip file that you can attach to an email.

Use our new "License Reset Tool" where you have 24/7 access to reset your own license key.

You can download from our website by hovering your mouse over the Support tab at the top of the page and select the "Download" link for the product you want to download. This will take you to the Customer Login page. The login is not associated with your purchase. Please create an account by clicking "Create an Account." Enter the requested information and note that your email address will be your username.

Once you have created an account and logged in, you will be able to download the most current version from the link on the right side of the page. For access to previous versions of Switch, please contact support.

Watch the   Desktop Applications Tutorial: Download Current and Previous Versions of Software.

To look up your order history, the status of your order, and transaction details, please see the following ecommerce partners depending on your date of purchase.

At Telestream, we strive for your complete satisfaction. If you are not completely satisfied with any Desktop Application you purchased from our online store, we are happy to offer a 100% refund within 30 days of purchase.

Please click here to request a refund.

You can view purchase history and receipts by going to our ecommerce provider's (2Checkout) Account Management site.

2Checkout – Manage My Account

If you purchased through a reseller, you will need to contact the reseller to recover your license.