DVR to TS Converter

How to Convert DVR to TS Online

1. Upload Your DVR File: Drag and drop or click "Add Files" to select a .dvr or .dvr-ms recording from Windows Media Center, a CCTV/security DVR, or another set-top recorder. Batch conversion is supported.
2. Pick Quality Preset or Bitrate: Default is "Very High" under Quality Preset (Highest → Lowest). For finer control, switch to Constant Quality (CRF 0–51, default 23 for H.264 — lower is sharper), Constant Bitrate (default 4 Mbps), or Variable Bitrate (target 4, min 2, max 8 Mbps).
3. Choose Video Codec, Resolution, and Trim (Optional): Default codec is H.264; H.265, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, and Xvid are also available. Keep original resolution, pick a preset (144p–4320p), scale by percentage, or enter a custom Width × Height. Set a start time and duration in seconds or HH:MM:SS.sss to extract a single segment.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert." Files process in your browser session — no sign-up, no watermark, no upload to a third-party cloud.

Why Convert DVR to TS?

.dvr is an ambiguous extension. Most often it points to a Microsoft DVR-MS recording from Windows XP Media Center, Vista, or Windows 7 — an ASF-based container holding MPEG-2 video and either MPEG-1 Audio Layer II or Dolby Digital AC-3 audio. Microsoft introduced DVR-MS in 2004 and replaced it with WTV starting with the Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008. The same .dvr extension is also used by some standalone CCTV recorders and satellite receivers for their own proprietary streams.

MPEG transport stream (TS) is the standardized broadcast container defined in ISO/IEC 13818-1 / ITU-T H.222.0. Each TS is a sequence of 188-byte packets, designed to survive lossy transmission over DVB, ATSC, and IPTV. Re-wrapping a DVR recording into TS gives you a file that NLE software, set-top boxes, IPTV servers, and modern streaming pipelines all accept.

• Windows Media Center is end-of-life — Microsoft removed Media Center from Windows 10 in 2015 and never brought it back. Existing DVR-MS libraries from Vista/7 era PCs need conversion to remain usable on current systems.
• NLE and broadcast editor compatibility — Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Avid Media Composer reliably import MPEG-TS; DVR-MS support is patchy or requires plugins.
• IPTV and streaming servers — Wowza, NGINX-RTMP, and HLS packagers expect TS chunks. Converting once at ingest avoids repeated transcodes downstream.
• Set-top and HDHomeRun playback — Many networked TV tuners and Plex/Jellyfin live-TV pipelines store and replay broadcast video as TS natively.
• Drop the DRM and ASF baggage — DVR-MS files can carry copy-protection flags from cable/OTA broadcasts; non-protected recordings re-wrap cleanly into TS, while flagged recordings will not (by design).
• Archive at original quality — Pick H.264 with a low CRF (or simply remux MPEG-2) to preserve the source picture without a generation loss.

DVR-MS vs WTV vs TS — Format Comparison

Codec Choice for the TS Output

Frequently Asked Questions

Is my .dvr file actually DVR-MS, or something else?

DVR-MS files almost always have the extension .dvr-ms (with the hyphen). A bare .dvr more often comes from a security camera DVR, a satellite/cable set-top box, or a generic capture device — formats vary by manufacturer. If our converter accepts the file, it contains a recognizable MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 stream wrapped in a known container. If it rejects the file, the recorder likely used an undocumented proprietary format and you'll need the manufacturer's playback software.

Will conversion work on copy-protected recordings?

No. DVR-MS files captured from broadcasts that asserted the Broadcast Flag (or pay-TV channels with CGMS-A copy protection) are encrypted to the recording machine. Microsoft's own documentation states protected files "can only be played back on the recording device." FFmpeg, our converter, and every other third-party tool will refuse them. Unprotected recordings — most over-the-air ATSC and many cable channels — convert without issue.

Why TS instead of MP4?

TS is designed for streaming and broadcast. Each 188-byte packet stands alone, so a TS file can be cut at any packet boundary, concatenated end-to-end, or chunked into HLS segments without rebuilding an index. MP4 needs its moov atom to seek, which makes it brittle for live capture and segmenting. For local playback or web embeds, DVR to MP4 is friendlier; for IPTV servers, NLE ingest, or HDHomeRun pipelines, TS is the right target.

What's the difference between .ts, .m2ts, and .mts?

All three carry MPEG transport streams. .ts is the canonical broadcast extension with raw 188-byte packets. .m2ts is the Blu-ray Disc Audio-Video (BDAV) variant — same payload but each packet is prefixed with a 4-byte timestamp, making packets 192 bytes. .mts is the AVCHD camcorder variant, which is m2ts under a different extension. Our converter outputs standard 188-byte .ts. If you need Blu-ray-style packets, see MTS to MP4 or M2TS to MP4 for related conversions.

Will the audio survive the conversion?

Yes. DVR-MS audio is either MPEG-1 Layer II or Dolby Digital AC-3, and TS supports both natively. By default our converter re-encodes to AAC for broadest compatibility; pick the AC-3 codec selection if you want to keep 5.1 surround intact, or pick MP2 to preserve the original Layer II track without re-encoding.

Can I convert a WTV file the same way?

WTV is a different container — Microsoft's replacement for DVR-MS starting with Windows Media Center 2008. WTV doesn't use ASF and has its own structure. Windows 7 included a wtvconverter.exe utility that re-wraps unprotected WTV into DVR-MS, after which our DVR converter can process it. For a one-step path, WTV to MP4 goes straight from .wtv to MP4.

How big will the output TS file be?

For a one-hour 1080p recording at the default settings (H.264, CRF 23, AAC stereo audio), expect roughly 1.5–2.5 GB. Choosing H.265 typically halves that. A true remux into MPEG-2 TS produces a file roughly the same size as the source. To target a specific size, switch the File Compression mode to "Target file size" and enter your cap.

Why is my file rejected with "no decodable streams"?

Three common causes: (1) the recording is DRM-protected as described above; (2) the .dvr is from a CCTV recorder using a manufacturer-only codec — try the vendor's player to export a standard format first; (3) the file is truncated (recording interrupted). For corrupted DVR-MS files specifically, FFmpeg's -err_detect ignore_err flag often recovers the playable portion locally; if that helps, re-upload the recovered file.

Can I trim the recording during conversion?

Yes. Open Trim in Advanced Options, set a start time and a duration in either seconds or HH:MM:SS.sss format. Only the selected segment is encoded, so trimming is also the fastest way to extract a short clip from a multi-hour recording. For repeated trim-only work, compress MP4 and similar single-purpose tools are also available.