General Information
Is there any difference between the App Store and Shedworx versions?
What level of support is offered?
Where is the Smart Converter Pro log file?
What about subtitle support?
What about multiple audio tracks on movies?
Why does Smart Converter and Smart Converter Pro ask to access my Address Book?
Video Conversions
My conversion failed, what can I do?
What happened to VOB support?
My video converted fine but it won't play in iTunes
I'm having trouble with AVCHD conversions
Is there any difference between the App Store and Shedworx versions?
The App Store version of Smart Converter has to fit in with Apple's rules for App Store apps. This means that things like converting copy-protected files are not allowed.
So far, the two versions are identical except for VOB file support. The Shedworx version will convert non copy-protected VOB files, while the App Store version will not.
What level of support is offered?
Shedworx offers email support 9am to 5pm weekdays (Perth, Australia timezone, which is GMT+8). We are a regular business and work 9-5, like most people. We respond to almost all support requests within 24hrs on weekdays.
Our systems all run 24x7, but we only provide support while we are at work.
Where is the Smart Converter Pro log file?
The Smart Converter Pro log file is kept at
On OSX Lion, the Library folder is hidden by default. To display the Library folder, open a Terminal session and paste in the following text:
chflags nohidden ~/Library
You can easily find the log file by choosing File->Reveal Log File from the application menu.
What about subtitle support?
Smart Converter doesn't support subtitles yet. This is because its actually a lot harder to get right in a converter than it sounds and we aren't prepared to put out a 'half baked' solution just to tick a box on our product description.
Subtitle support will be available in late 2013. We're not sure whether this will be in both Pro and Free versions of Smart Converter. If the final implementation requires some preference settings, it will be a Pro feature only.
What about multiple audio tracks on movies?
We have not yet implemented audio track support for the same reasons as subtitles.
Audio track selection support will be available early in 2013. We're not sure whether this will be in both Pro and Free versions of Smart Converter. If the final implementation requires some preference settings, it will be a Pro feature only.
Why does Smart Converter and Smart Converter Pro ask to access my Address Book?
We have added a signup screen to all of our apps to ask you if you want to sign up to the Shedworx newsletter.
The Shedworx newsletter will tell you about specials that we will be running with big discounts to the prices of our apps through the year.
To make it easier for customers to sign up to the newsletter we ask for access to your Address Book to pull in your email address. That's all we use the Address Book access for. We don't look at any of your other contacts or modify your Address Book in any way.
My conversion failed, what can I do?
Conversions failures are generally caused by the same thing - corrupt files. Downloads from torrents and the like contain corruptions now and then, so your best bet is to try another download source.
It is also common for a corrupt file to actually still be playable, since a video player is more forgiving than a converter. Just because a video will play does not mean it will convert.
If you do want us to take a look at a failed conversion, we need the file. Most times we will just tell you that the file is corrupt. In this case it is also very unlikely that any converter will be able to handle the file.
What happened to VOB support?
The initial version of Smart Converter Free included VOB support. We thought that this was OK as we were not allowing the conversion of copy-protected VOB files.
When we submitted version 1.1 of Smart Converter to the App Store it got rejected because it allowed VOB file conversion.
We had to remove VOB conversion support from Smart Converter and Smart Converter Pro in order to get them listed on the App Store. We have retained VOB support in the Shedworx versions of Smart Converter and Smart Converter Pro.
My video converted fine but it won't play in iTunes
This problem is caused by iTunes not being able to play the audio in a movie. You will see the first frame of the movie in iTunes, but it won't play.
iTunes won't be able to play a video containing an unsupported audio type. The most common cause of this is AC3 (Dolby Digital audio) in a QuickTime movie. AC3 will playback on an AppleTV, but not on a Mac running iTunes.
To fix this, make sure you don't have the 'AC3 Passthrough' option set in Advanced Preferences.
I'm having trouble with AVCHD conversions
The default conversion method for AVCHD video is 'Fast' which means that the video is rewrapped from AVCHD to QuickTime without conversion.
Sometimes this doesn't work correctly for a number of reasons, so there is an option under Advanced Preferences to force conversion of AVCHD video. This will ensure that a full conversion happens, which is a much more reliable approach than rewrapping.
Note that the AVCHD conversions carried out by Smart Converter are not suitable for editing.
If all else fails, there is always VoltaicHD, our professional grade AVCHD converter, aimed at video editing requirements.
