AVI to WTV Converter

Convert AVI to WTV Online

WTV — Windows Recorded TV Show — is the container Windows Media Center wrote when it recorded television, and that is the only reason to make one today: folding an AVI clip into a surviving Media Center library on a Windows 7 or 8.1 HTPC, where the Recorded TV gallery indexes .wtv files. If you simply want a video that plays on phones, browsers, smart TVs, and editors, convert AVI to MP4 instead. This page re-encodes your AVI into the WTV wrapper; files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours. No sign-up, no watermark.

How to Convert AVI to WTV

1. Upload Your AVI File: Drag and drop your .avi files onto the page or click "Add Files." Batch upload works — every file in the queue converts with the same settings.
2. Set Quality or Target Size: Open the advanced options. Quality Preset opens on "Very High (Recommended)" and runs down to Lowest; if you need to hit a number instead, File Compression also offers Target file size (%), Specific file size, Constant Bitrate, Variable Bitrate, Constant Quality, and Constraint Quality.
3. Adjust Resolution or Trim (Optional): Video resolution offers Keep original, Preset Resolutions (144p through 4320p), Resolution Percentage, or an explicit Width x Height. Set Trim to Time Range with a Start time and Duration to convert only part of a long recording.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert" and save the .wtv file, then drop it into your Recorded TV folder. No sign-up, no watermark, and nothing is shared or made public.

AVI Format at a Glance

WTV Format at a Glance

What This Converter Actually Writes

There is no codec picker on this page, and that is deliberate rather than an omission: WTV output is written with H.264 video and AAC audio, which is what the encoder falls back to for this container. That differs from a genuine tuner recording, which typically holds the broadcast stream untouched — MPEG-2 or H.264 video with MP2 or AC-3 audio. In practice, a Media Center library will list and play an H.264/AAC .wtv, but you should expect one behavioural difference: the electronic-programme-guide fields that make Recorded TV look tidy are written by the tuner during recording, and a converted file simply does not have them.

The server always re-encodes. Your AVI is decoded and its picture is compressed again as H.264, so plan for exactly one lossy generation and pick your Quality Preset accordingly. Upscaling with a Preset Resolution does not recover detail the AVI never captured — it only inflates the file — so leave the resolution on Keep original unless the target display genuinely requires a different size.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will the WTV file play on Windows 10 or Windows 11?

Not through Windows Media Center, because Microsoft announced in May 2015 that Media Center would not be carried into Windows 10, and there is no official replacement. The container itself still opens in FFmpeg-based players such as VLC, MPC-HC, and mpv on Windows 10 and 11, but you lose the Recorded TV interface and guide integration that is the entire point of WTV. If a modern PC is the target rather than a legacy HTPC, AVI to MP4 gives you a file that plays everywhere with no extra codecs.

I have a .wtv file I want to watch normally — am I on the wrong page?

Probably, yes. This page converts into WTV, which is only useful for a surviving Media Center setup. If somebody handed you a .wtv recording and you just want to watch or edit it on a current device, you want the reverse direction: WTV to MP4. H.264 in an MP4 plays on phones, browsers, smart TVs, and every desktop OS, which is what most people arriving at WTV actually need.

Which codecs does the WTV output contain?

H.264 video with AAC audio. This page exposes no Video Codec or Audio Codec selector, so there is no MPEG-2 or AC-3 option here even though real broadcast recordings often use them. If your playback device is strict about carrying Dolby Digital audio in a recorded-TV file, WTV from a converter is not the right route — that constraint comes from the tuner side of the ecosystem, not from the container.

Does converting AVI to WTV lose quality?

Yes, once. AVI and WTV do not share a codec — your AVI is typically DivX, Xvid, or MPEG-4 Part 2, and the WTV output is H.264 — so the video is decoded and re-encoded, which is one lossy generation. Holding Quality Preset at "Very High (Recommended)" keeps that generation visually close to a standard-definition source. Converting the same file back and forth repeatedly is what actually degrades it.

Can xconvert write the Media Center programme metadata (title, channel, episode)?

No. The converter writes the container and the video and audio streams, but it does not populate the electronic-programme-guide fields a tuner normally fills in at record time. The file will sit in a Recorded TV library and play; it just will not arrive pre-tagged with channel and broadcast-time data. Those fields live in the container header, so a standalone WTV metadata editor can inject them afterwards without re-encoding.

Why did Microsoft replace DVR-MS with WTV?

DVR-MS was the Windows XP Media Center recording format, built on ASF. WTV arrived with the 2008 "Fiji" TV Pack for Windows Vista Media Center and became the format Windows 7 recorded to, better suited to the H.264 and multi-stream broadcasts that were arriving at the time. If you are cataloguing an old HTPC you may well have both extensions in the same folder — they are the same idea a generation apart.

Can I shorten or shrink the file before converting?

Yes, on both axes. Set Trim to Time Range and give a Start time plus a Duration to encode only the section you want. For size, either lower the Quality Preset or use Specific file size and let the encoder aim at your number. If you would rather keep the file as an AVI and simply make it smaller, compress AVI does that without changing container.

What is the more practical Windows target if WTV is overkill?

AVI to WMV. WMV plays in Windows Media Player and the modern Media Player app on Windows 10 and 11 without Media Center or extra codecs, which covers the "I want a Windows-native video file" case that a lot of people land on WTV looking for. Reserve WTV for when the destination is genuinely a Media Center Recorded TV library.