Award-Winning Software from NCH

The true test of a software program is how well it works for the people who install and use it. The number of people downloading and using NCH programs everyday (roughly 3 million downloads every month) suggests our focus on creating powerful, easy and intuitive software is working well for a lot of people out there. And while you have the final word on if a program is right for you, we still appreciate the feedback of reviewers recognizing the work that has gone into making our software programs both powerful and easy-to-use.

Here is a peek into our trophy case, and just a small sample of the award-winning software titles in the NCH Software collection:

WavePad Sound Editor

WavePad has long been praised by reviewers for its easy and powerful, yet lightweight interface for audio editing.

"In spite of its tiny size, WavePad packs a big audio punch."
     - CNET

"WavePad has a lot to offer to the amateur audio editor, while still providing enough tools to make it a useful program for more seasoned audio editors."
     - TopTenReviews

Switch Audio Converter

Switch is not only easy to use, it supports more audio formats than the competition, making it a clear winner.

"Switch is just as useful for professionals that need to convert many songs into multiple formats as it is for the average person who knows they want to convert an AAC file to MP3. Switch is able to handle many different audio formats and has the largest selection of output formats of any program we reviewed."
     - TopTenReviews

VideoPad Video Editor

VideoPad has quickly become a major player in video editing with upgraded features, putting even more advanced options at your disposal.

"NCH Software's VideoPad Video Editor Professional is a full-featured video-editing tool that is surprisingly easy to use... It's a rare video editor that you can just fire up and start making movies with, but that's what we did with VideoPad."
     - CNET

PhotoStage Slideshow Software

PhotoStage lets you bring your digital photos to life and make easy-to-share presentations of every memorable occasion.

"PhotoStage Slideshow Producer shows that slideshow makers don't need to be difficult to use to produce great results."
     - CNET

"PhotoStage is intuitive and savvy photo slideshow software that enables you to assemble artistic, personalized picture slideshows with total ease."
     - TopTenReviews

Zulu DJ Mixing Software

Zulu is the complete DJ software solution for both amateur and professional DJs alike.

"In an extremely competitive field of DJ software, Zulu stands just a bit taller than all of the rest. The intuitive and advanced features of this program, including a user-friendly, simple and straightforward interface, helped it rise to the top of our rankings."
     - TopTenReviews

Inventoria Inventory Management

Inventoria allows businesses of all sizes to efficiently track all their inventory processes, whether for one small retail outlet, or a chain of stores and warehouses across several locations.

"The versatility of Inventoria is an excellent reason to purchase this product. It offers numerous helpful features such as the ability to add notes and photos to each item in your inventory. In addition, you have the opportunity to allow more users to access the program, which can increase productivity and ultimately enhance your bottom line."
     - TopTenReviews

Check out the complete range of NCH Software programs for more easy-to-use and award-winning software solutions for all your software needs.

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Convert and Compress Files

Whether you're on a Mac or a PC, these conversion applications cover nearly every file type you'll run into, making them the most complete and reliable software for converting and compressing files out there.

Switch Audio File Converter

For your music, presentations, or audio projects, Switch Audio Converter lets you put your music anywhere at any time. Convert music for your iPod, PSP or phone. Compress audio to save hard drive space. Create a ringtone on your phone by converting the format, or even extract audio from video files.

Prism Video File Converter

Your computer might only be able to open certain video file types. Use Prism Video Converter to ensure you'll always be able to watch your videos. With Prism you have complete control over video settings such as compression and encoder rates, resolution, frame rate, and size output. You can also batch convert thousands of files at once and preview videos before conversion.

Pixillion Image File Converter

Pixillion isn't just image conversion software, there are many additional settings to make adjustments to your images while converting including adding watermarks, adjust the image quality, size or resolution, or even crop and rotate photos.

Express Zip File Compression Software

Express Zip is currently the only application on this list that is only available for Windows, but it is an extremely valuable compression tool. Use Express Zip archiving software to create, manage, and extract zipped files and folders. Plus extract files from a variety of other archive formats including rar, cab, iso, tar, and 7z or convert those archives into zip files. You can also easily email zipped files from the program or simply compress files to save disk space.

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Making A Music Video

Over on Review Explorer Chris McGivern posted a detailed interview with Singer-songwriter Andy Fosberry of Ironlight River about making a music video. Fosberry took a do-it-yourself attitude and made a great video without sacrificing his creativity or breaking the bank. And we were particularly thrilled that Fosberry turned to NCH Software using Switch Audio Converter, Prism Video Converter and VideoPad Video Editor to help him along the way.

"As a musician, I use a piece of software call Switch by NCH Software which converts audio formats. And it’s brilliant. To convert these video files I used their A/V equivalent which is called Prism. When it was downloading, I had the option on loads of other things and saw something called VideoPad, which was billed as editing software. I figured it would be like WavePad and, therefore, just for clips etc, but it’s a fully working, kind of mid-level piece of editing software ... Its just so beautifully usable. So much so that I had a working edit in about 8 hours. All the effects, are nicely editable in themselves. So you can really make significant changes to what you are working on."

– Andy Fosberry

If you're interested in making your own music video(s) we would encourage you to go over to Review Explorer and read How To Make A Music Video – For Free for more details on what Fosberry did for his video, and to see the results.

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Convert your Favorite Movie Line to a Ringtone

Do you ever hear famous lines from movies as ringtones and get secretly jealous? Or even obviously jealous? Lucky for you, any line can become a ringtone in just a few short minutes...and you can do it yourself.

What you'll need:
Switch Audio File Converter
WavePad Audio Editor

Nope, that is not a typo—using Switch audio file converter, you can extract the audio from any video file and convert it into a workable audio file format. However, if you think you'll get more use out of video file conversion software, Prism Video File Converter also allows you to extract audio from video files and convert to mp3 or wav files.

Step One:
Extract the audio. Load the video file into Switch, select the format you want to convert to (wav will work fine for now), and click the Convert button. Whew! That was too easy.
Tip: If you don't want to convert such a long audio file, you can trim the video file to a smaller size, isolating the clip you want using VideoPad Video Editor first.

Step Two:
Edit the audio. Now that you have an audio file, load it into WavePad using the Open File icon in the toolbar, browse to your new audio file and open it. Now, isolate the movie line by clicking and dragging to highlight the audio you want to keep in the file. You can make adjustments to the edges of the selected portion by clicking and dragging the edges of the selection. Don't be afraid to preview how the line sounds by pressing the spacebar to play the selection. When everything is just as you want it, press Ctrl+T to trim away everything but your selection. Now save the file in a format appropriate for your phone, load it on your phone and set it as your ringtone.

Voilà! Now who's jealous of your movie ringtone?

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Use What Works: Why a Podcaster Uses Switch Audio Converter Every Day

Guest post by podcaster Kole Ross www.koleross.com

We take it for granted that our tools do what we ask them to. If they didn't, we probably wouldn't use them anymore. What makes a piece of software great, however, is how easy it is to tell it what to do. For me, Switch Audio Converter is one of those great programs, and I rely on it daily.

I'm an underemployed podcaster, a part the digital serf caste. You see us around, the overweight or underweight bearded dudes with laptops, blogs, and opinions about why Facebook sucks.

I graduated from an Electronic Media program where I was surrounded by these digital serfs, and learned how to use lots of different pieces of media software. Final Cut Pro, Adobe Creative Suite, Pro Tools, the list goes on. If you have more than a passing acquaintance with these software suites, you probably have an opinion about which one works best.

I get them, I understand how to use them, and I know how powerful they can be. When I was starting out, though, I could never shake the feeling that they were "too much." If you're cutting a steak, you don't whip out a Swiss army knife. You use a steak knife, like a normal person.

I started podcasting in 2007, wanting to turn my internet radio show into a packaged, persistent product. This first podcast eventually turned into Stand Under the Don't Tree and Riddle Me This, a video game talk show with a bewildering name. Three years later, I started a second podcast, Those Damn Ross Kids, a NSFW comedy podcast that I do with my brother, Kris.

When you're a poor student (or even a poor graduate—feed me please) it's difficult to afford fancy software to fuel your hobbies. So, you use what works. To this day, I edit my shows in Garageband because it's free and simple. A friend of mine once criticized me for using "kiddie gloves," but my response remains: "It doesn't get in the way when I sit down to make things." I like a program that does one thing well. Every button and lever I don't use is just wasting my time.

The same goes for Switch, which simply does what I ask it to without putting up a fuss.

The end product of a podcast is always an MP3 file, but it goes through lots of different phases in its life cycle. The shows are recorded over Skype as high-sample rate stereo AIFF files. My voice is always on the right channel, while the incoming audio from Skype is on the left channel. I drop this file into Garageband to separate the tracks, and re-export them so that I'm able to do multitrack editing, making editing out overtalk a breeze.

The separated files are still in stereo, though, so I pop those back into Switch to squash them into mono AIFF files. These are easier to edit, and take up half as much space. I then put these files onto separate tracks in Garageband and go to town, making what we say clever and insightful.

When I'm done with that, I apply the Levelator to the AIFF. The Levelator's motto should be "Crummy thing go in, pretty thing come out." It doesn't work all the time, but it's better than spending an hour trying to configure a compressor.

The final step comes when I drop the finished file into Switch again, compressing it to a 96kbps mono MP3 file for distribution. This is the best compromise between sound quality and size. It's a quick download, and it doesn't waste all of that time I spent equalizing it to sound good. Switch made this easy to figure out. All I had to do was mess with the encoder options and re-convert until I got something good.

Voila, that's a podcast. Spank it on the bottom, FTP it, and let the world know that it's ready.

There have been other times in my professional and academic career where Switch has bailed me out... For example with how finicky Final Cut Pro is vis-á-vis what kind of audio files it will play nice with.

The moral of the story is this: Even though the aforementioned $1000+ media suites can probably spit out the kinds of files you want, I don't need all of the excess functionality that comes with it. Switch just exists. It's a box on my desktop that takes one thing and makes it into another thing, without complaint.

I don't need a Jaws of Life to open my beer, thanks. Just let me make something and get on with my day. My job is to be funny in front of a microphone, not fiddle with software.

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One Click Converting

Some of the most useful software applications to have at the ready are file format converters. You never know when a file might land in your email or come across your desk in a format that you can't open. This can be exceedingly frustrating. With the right file converter you can solve this problem with a click of the mouse instead of having to go back to the source to see if they can re-save it for you.

Plus, in case having the convenience of a file converter on hand wasn't enough, for any formats that you convert to regularly, you can easily add a shortcut to your Windows Explorer right click menu for even faster conversion.

For example, if you constantly need to convert music for your mp3 player, you might want to create a shortcut for converting to mp3 with Switch audio converter. To do that, go to the "Right Click" tab in "Options," turn on one of the shortcut commands and select mp3 from the pull down menu. Once you've saved this setting, the next time you right click on a supported audio file you can "convert to mp3 using Switch" right then and there.

Our other conversion software have similar options to help save you time. Try our full range of converting software including:

• Prism video converter
  
• Switch audio converter
  
• Pixillion image converter
  
• Doxillion document converter
  

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File Converters Making Life Easy

As a student in this day and age, most of my work is composed digitally. I rarely write essays with pen and paper and I even take class notes on my lap top computer. I also deal with a wide array of mixed file formats on a daily basis. From audio to document files, to videos and images, it can be difficult to manage the various file types involved in daily projects. This is especially difficult when I am transferring files back-and-forth from Mac to PC for my school labs and study groups. Not having conversion software on-hand can be the kill shot for any project or paper.

I like to be prepared with every type of conversion software I might need. Switch Audio File Converter is handy when downloading files from various places that may or may not be compatible with different types of computers.

I use Pixillion Image Converter to convert pictures, particularly when I am working with large RAW photos that are difficult to transport on USB devices or via e-mail.

Prism Video Conversion Software is excellent for converting video from PC friendly formats to ones that are more suitable for my Mac at home. It has compression tools and built-in batch conversion, so I can quickly convert multiple videos for large projects.

Converting documents is also quick and easy with Doxillion Document Converter. This is incredibly helpful when toggling between different versions of popular office applications and eliminates the wasted time spent communicating back and forth about difficulties opening and using documents.

For other time-saving software see our full range of software utilities for applications for disc burning, compressing, encryption and more.

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7 Programs You Can't Live Without

Prism Video Converter If you've ever had trouble opening a video file, you need Prism. Prism will let you quickly convert any troublesome video files into a more manageable format. With more formats supported than any other video converter, you'll be hard pressed to come across a video file that Prism can't handle.

Switch Audio Converter There are a lot of different audio file formats out there, and a lot of places you might want to keep your favorite music, from CDs and iPods to your computer or online, just to name a few. Make sure you always have the right format for every song and every application with the Switch Audio Converter.

FastFox Typing Expander Ever find yourself typing the same things over and over? FastFox can be a huge helping hand at home or at work. Use keyboard shortcuts to expand to anything you commonly write, and save time inserting signatures in email, filling out online forms, and writing long responses to customer questions.

Debut Video Capture Whether you want to transfer the video from a camcorder to your computer, are trying to record a video from your webcam, or even recording your screen, Debut is your single software solution for capturing video.

Express Burn Disc Burning Software Burn pictures, home movies, resumes, portfolios, or back up your files to CDs, DVDs and even Blue-Ray discs in a variety of file formats with Express Burn. Simply drag, drop and burn.

PhotoStage Slideshow Creator Bring your digital photos to life and share your favorite memories with family and friends. Tell a compelling story, display your best images, or show off your proudest moments. PhotoStage lets you combine images, video clips, music and narration in a fun and dynamic fashion.

WavePad Audio Editor No list would be complete without one of our all-time favorites: WavePad. WavePad is the perfect application for any audio project in the sound studio or at home. The easy-to-use interface will have you up and running quickly with all the powerful tools you need at your fingertips.

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An Audio Swiss Army Knife

Once again I find myself taking inspiration from Twitter. Similar to the "Twitter Principle of Software," I recently saw another tweet that stood out to me as really great quote. This time about our Switch audio converter software:

@MountainDan: Switch from NCH Software is an amazing audio swiss army knife for Mac

I really like this metaphor. A pocket knife is compact but doubly handy because, despite its size, it has a tool for everything. We pride ourselves in the number of audio file formats that Switch can handle. It really can fit the job and convert the file no matter what audio file format you find yourself coming across or in need of. And, like a Swiss Army knife, it is all neatly packaged together in a light-weight, less than 500k application download that installs fast and is easy to use.

In fact, I'd like to think that our whole range of file converters and software are like the various tools of a Swiss Army knife. Need to convert a video file? We have Prism video converter for that. Need to remove background noise from an audio recording? We have Wavepad Audio Editor for that. Need to record what you are seeing on your screen? We have Debut Video Capture Software for video screen recording to solve that one. We have so many simple software solutions it's like having a full tool belt at your disposal, and we hope you remember that and turn to NCH Software when you are looking for solutions, whatever the problem at hand might be.

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NCH Audio Suite Complete for Mac

With the release of Zulu DJ Software for Mac earlier this week, all five of the core audio software tools that make up the NCH Audio Suite are now all available for the Mac, completing the Audio Suite for Apple fans. Take a closer look at these 5 essential audio tools for Mac and Widows PC users alike:

• WavePad audio editor
  
• MixPad multitrack recorder and mixer
  
• RecordPad audio recorder
  
• Switch audio file converter
  
• Zulu DJ Software
  

Note: All 5 audio software products are available for download and purchase individually through the NCH Software website, and the retail box with all these audio tools bundled together is available at a selection of retail stores in the US including Fry's, MicroCenter, CompUSA, Amazon and more, so keep your eyes peeled for NCH Software in a store near you.

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Converting Software For All Your Needs

You may already be familiar with some of NCH's converter software for converting files between different formats; like Switch, for converting audio files, and Prism, for video file conversion. Well those two favorites are just the beginning! We’ve recently added Doxillion document converter software into the mix. With Doxillion, you can convert your text documents to supported formats for mobile devices and web pages. Convert text to docx, doc, rtf, html, txt and pdf quickly and easily. Even batch convert documents to handle thousands of files all at once.

Check out our full range of converting software applications:

• Switch audio converting software
  
• Prism video converting software
  
• Pixillion image converting software
  
• Doxillion document converter
  
• Golden Records Vinyl to CD converter
  
• Golden Videos VHS to DVD converter
  
• Verbose text to speech converter
  

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Convert Any Media File to any Audio File with Switch Audio Converter

Our Switch Audio File Converter is one of our more popular applications, allowing you to convert audio files between a wide range of audio file formats including: mp3, wav, wma, acc, dvf, midi and more. If you have audio files on your computer that you want to put on your mp3 player that aren't mp3s you need an application like Switch for mp3 conversion first. With the batch audio converter feature you can convert thousands of files from multiple formats all in one go.



As proof of its popularity, Switch Audio Converter was rated number one from Top Ten Reviews. Read their review or watch the video spotlight.
Have a Mac? Read the Mac Review from BrightHub.

Did you know that you can extract audio from video too?
With Switch, not only can you convert audio files, but you can use it for extracting audio files and sound bites from DVDs and other video file formats as well. It is as easy as adding the video file to your list of files to convert, pick your format and destination and click convert. The process is the same if you are converting wma to mp3 or mov to wav.

Best of all, Switch is free. We make the standard version of Switch free because we know you will love it so much you will want to upgrade to Switch Plus which supports additional encode-to formats for serious audio professionals. Whichever one you decide to use, we hope that you will agree that if you need to convert and audio file, Switch Audio Converter from NCH Software is the best choice.

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