MPEG to WTV Converter

MPEG to WTV Converter

.wtv is Windows Recorded TV Show — the file type Windows Media Center wrote when it recorded television. .mpeg and .mpg are MPEG program streams, the DVD and capture-card format that most legacy television material was archived in. Converting one to the other is a library problem, not a quality problem: people do it so an old recording sits alongside genuine Media Center recordings in the same folder and opens with the same double-click. This page explains what each format is, what the conversion can and cannot carry across, and which controls this particular target actually exposes.

MPEG Program Stream at a Glance

WTV Format at a Glance

How to Convert MPEG to WTV

1. Upload Your MPEG File: Drag and drop, or click "+ Add Files" to select one or more .mpeg / .mpg recordings. Batch uploads are supported and every file in the batch uses the same settings.
2. Choose a File Compression Mode: Quality Preset is the default and starts at "Very High (Recommended)". Specific file size, Constant Bitrate, Variable Bitrate, Constant Quality (a 16-51 CRF slider, lower is better) and Constraint Quality (CRF plus a Max bitrate ceiling) are the alternatives.
3. Set Video resolution or Trim: Video resolution defaults to Keep original, with Resolution Percentage, Preset Resolutions, Width, Height and Width x Height available. Trim takes a start time and a duration in seconds or HH:MM:SS.sss.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared.

About the Codec Controls on This Page

The options panel shows a Video Codec heading and an Audio Codec heading for this target, and both are currently empty — every codec entry in the shared list is excluded for the WTV container, so there is nothing to click under either heading. That is a real gap in the current configuration rather than something you are missing. What it means in practice is that codec selection is not a decision you get to make here: the video is encoded as H.264, and because no audio codec is configured for WTV, the container's own default of AC-3 is what the output carries. Every other group on the page — File Compression, Video resolution, Trim — behaves normally.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will a converted .wtv behave like a real Media Center recording?

It will be a valid WTV file that plays, but it is not a recording. Media Center wrote programme title, channel, episode information, broadcast timestamps and thumbnails into its recordings, and none of that exists in your MPEG source, so none of it can appear in the output. Expect a playable file with a Recorded TV extension, not a library entry with guide data attached.

Does Windows still ship with anything that opens WTV?

Not by default. Microsoft announced in May 2015 that Windows Media Center would be discontinued and it is not included in Windows 10 or later; the associated guide service ended on 14 January 2020. WTV playback survives through third-party players built on libavformat — VLC and MPC-HC among them — which read the container regardless of whether Media Center is present.

Can I keep the original MPEG-2 video instead of re-encoding it?

No. Every conversion here is a real re-encode, so the MPEG-2 picture is decoded and encoded again as H.264 on the way into the WTV wrapper. There is no stream-copy path. If preserving the exact original video stream is the priority, keep the .mpeg file as your master and treat the WTV as a convenience copy.

Why can't I choose the video or audio codec?

Because both codec groups render empty for this target in the current configuration — every entry in the shared codec lists is excluded for WTV, leaving two headings with nothing under them. The conversion still runs, using H.264 for video and the WTV container's default AC-3 for audio. If codec choice is the deciding factor for you, MPEG to MKV exposes a full codec list into a container that also plays on Windows.

My recording is interlaced — will the WTV be progressive?

No. There is no deinterlacing anywhere in this conversion, so a field-based MPEG-2 source keeps its comb pattern, and the H.264 encode bakes that pattern into the picture rather than signalling it as interlaced content. If clean progressive output matters, deinterlace in a video editor before uploading.

What happens to a widescreen DVD-sourced recording?

Leaving Video resolution on Keep original preserves the source's pixel aspect ratio, so a 16:9 anamorphic 720x480 file stays 16:9. Any resize option normalises pixels to square, which turns that same file into a squashed 3:2 picture. If you need to resize anamorphic material, use Width x Height and enter the display dimensions directly — 854 x 480 for 16:9 NTSC, 1024 x 576 for 16:9 PAL.

Which File Compression mode should I pick for a long recording?

Quality Preset at the default "Very High" is the safe choice and needs no arithmetic. If the recording has to fit a fixed budget — a disc, a share, a drive with a known amount of space left — switch to Specific file size and type the target in megabytes; the encoder works backwards from the duration to hit it. Constant Quality is the choice when consistent picture quality matters more than a predictable size, with lower CRF values meaning better quality on the 16-51 scale.

Is there a better target than WTV for archiving old MPEG recordings?

For archiving, almost certainly yes. WTV is a single-vendor container tied to software Microsoft stopped shipping a decade ago, so it is a compatibility choice rather than a preservation choice. MPEG to MP4 gives you H.264 in a container that plays on essentially every device made this century, and MPEG to MKV gives you a fully open container with room for multiple audio and subtitle tracks. Choose WTV when you specifically need the file to sit in a Media Center library.