When you are dabbling with multiple media players and hardware, chances are you will need to convert a multimedia file at one time or the other. As the developers of SMConverter state, conversion should be a simple process and that is precisely what this program aims to do. The program falls in the adware category, meaning it is free and supported by advertisements.
Installation & Requirements
The program’s setup is relatively pain free, although you will be redirected to its website upon the installation’s completion which will probably be annoying for most users. Other than that, the setup is very fast owing to the small file size of the application so no problems should arise. SMConverter supports Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8.
Interface
The fact that simplicity was a keyword when designing the application is obvious right from the get go. Conversion utilities are often clunky and tedious to use but SMConverter does not fall in that trap. Although there are some immediate annoyances like the advertisements at the bottom, the benefits usually outweigh the flaws that the program has.
Even when you look at the configuration settings sidebar you will not get overwhelmed which is a lot to say about this kind of program. The reason is that everything works great at the default settings and the user does not really need to mess with these options if they do not know what they are doing. That is obviously a great way to do things and a commendable effort by the developers to optimize the conversion process of files. The best thing is that those that do know what they are doing will find a lot of customization options to play around with, including the ability to remove the audio or video stream which is great if you want to extract audio from your favorite videos or want to add voiceover to them.
The conversion process is not the quickest out there but it definitely falls somewhere in the middle. The application supports quite a big range of formats, including hardware specific ones like iPod ones. It does not offer as many specific formats as similar offerings though so if you do not own one of the few supported devices then you are out of luck.
The aforementioned lack of hardware-specific formats falls into the list of strange choices that the developers have made when designing the program. What is by far the most irritating feature (or lack thereof) is that drag and drop is not supported, despite the developers claiming otherwise. Another small annoyance is that clicking on the output text field does nothing at all and the user needs to click on a Save button to choose a target location. These problems take away from the experience as a whole and it is a shame because they are issues that could be easily addressed.
Pros
-Elegant interface
-Designed around ease-of-use and it shows
-Decent selection of configuration settings
-The ability to batch convert files
Cons
-Bad design choices hinder usability
Conclusion
SMConverter is a decent utility that will surely make your conversions far easier. If you are looking for extensive options or a huge list of supported file formats, however, the program might not suit your needs, at least not fully.
