WTV to 3G2 Converter

How to Convert WTV to 3G2 Online

1. Upload Your WTV File: Drag and drop, or click "+ Add Files" to select recordings exported from Windows Media Center. Batch uploads are supported, and processing runs in your browser session — no installs.
2. Pick Video Codec and Quality Preset: 3G2 is locked to H.263, MPEG-4 Part 2, or H.264/AVC by the 3GPP2 spec, so audio is re-encoded to AMR. Leave the default to mirror the original 3GPP2 mobile profile, or use Quality Preset (Lowest, Low, Medium, High, Very High, Highest — Very High is the default) or Constant Quality / Constraint Quality / Constant Bitrate / Variable Bitrate if you want finer control over file size.
3. Set Resolution and Trim (Optional): Open Preset Resolutions and pick QCIF (176x144) or QVGA (320x240) to match what real CDMA handsets played — the format was never designed for 1080p HDTV recordings. You can also set Resolution Percentage, custom Width x Height, or open Trim and use a Time Range to clip out the ad breaks that Media Center embedded in the WTV.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. The output is a .3g2 file with video/3gpp2 MIME type, playable in VLC and most desktop converters. For modern playback or sharing, prefer WTV to MP4 instead — 3G2 is a legacy CDMA-only container.

Why Convert WTV to 3G2?

WTV is the proprietary container Windows Media Center wrote when you recorded over-the-air, cable, or CableCARD TV — Microsoft introduced it with the Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 for Vista and made it the default in Windows 7 Media Center. The format wraps MPEG-2 or H.264 video with AC-3 or MPEG-1 Layer II audio, often carries broadcast-flag DRM, and is essentially orphaned: Windows Media Center was removed from Windows 10 at launch in 2015 and Microsoft shut down the Electronic Program Guide service on January 14, 2020. 3G2, defined by 3GPP2 (the standards body for CDMA2000), was designed for CDMA mobile handsets on Verizon, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, KDDI au, and similar carriers — it tops out at QVGA-class resolutions and ships with QCELP/EVRC voice codecs that no longer exist on modern smartphones. Converting WTV to 3G2 is almost always a niche workflow rather than a mainstream one:

• Feeding archived TV clips into a CDMA-era handset emulator — emulators that mimic flip phones from the 2005-2012 Verizon/Sprint window still expect 3GPP2-stamped containers; a .3g2 from your WTV recording will load where the same MP4 fails the player's MIME check.
• Testing legacy in-vehicle systems — some Toyota, Honda, and GM head units from the late-2000s "iPod connect" generation accept 3G2 on a USB stick or SD card for sample clips when nothing else plays.
• Retro-mobile content archives — collectors who preserve the QCELP/EVRC era of mobile video keep clips in 3G2 because that is the wrapper that proves the asset belongs to the CDMA2000 lineage, not the GSM 3GP lineage.
• Bandwidth-constrained M2M video — older industrial / IoT modules built on CDMA2000 1xEV-DO modems sometimes still expect 3G2 for diagnostic clips, even though the underlying U.S. CDMA networks shut down (Verizon retired its 3G CDMA network on December 31, 2022).
• Forensic and broadcast-archive tasks — exporting a clip from a WTV recording to 3G2 when an evidence pipeline or archival tool requires a 3GPP2-tagged container for its ingest validator.
• Stripping WTV's DRM-bearing structure — the conversion to 3G2 re-encodes through a plain MPEG-4 stack, which can rescue a recording that some software refuses to open because of the original Windows Media Center protected-content flags (only legal for content you own the rights to).

If your goal is "play this old TV recording on a modern phone or laptop," 3G2 is the wrong target — convert to WTV to MP4, WTV to MKV, or WTV to AVI instead. Pick 3G2 only when something downstream actually requires the 3GPP2 container.

WTV vs 3G2 — Format Comparison

Video Codec Quick Guide for 3G2 Output

Audio inside the file will be AMR-NB or AMR-WB. The 3GPP2 spec also defines EVRC, EVRC-B, EVRC-WB, 13K QCELP, SMV, and VMR-WB, but those are CDMA voice codecs that almost no current encoder ships, and the converter falls back to AMR for compatibility.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is 3G2 the same thing as 3GP?

No. They are sibling containers but defined by different standards bodies for different cellular networks: 3GP is from 3GPP for GSM/UMTS (AT&T, T-Mobile, Vodafone), 3G2 is from 3GPP2 for CDMA2000 (Verizon, Sprint, KDDI au). The underlying ISO base media file format is shared, but 3G2 omits HE-AAC v2 and AMR-WB+, adds CDMA voice codecs (EVRC, QCELP, SMV, VMR-WB), and uses the video/3gpp2 MIME type. If you actually want the GSM variant, use WTV to 3GP instead.

Will modern phones play the resulting 3G2 file?

Generally no. The CDMA networks 3G2 was built for are gone — Verizon retired CDMA on December 31, 2022, and Sprint completed its CDMA shutdown earlier the same year. Modern Android and iOS phones do not advertise 3G2 in their native players, and even when a clip plays it is because VLC, MX Player, or KMPlayer is doing the decoding, not the OS. If "phone playback" is the goal, convert to MP4 instead.

Why is the output much smaller than the WTV file?

WTV recordings are full broadcast streams — MPEG-2 at 8-20 Mbps for SD, H.264 or MPEG-2 at higher rates for HD, plus AC-3 surround audio. 3G2 was designed for ~64-384 kbps over 1xEV-DO mobile networks, so the converter downscales resolution to QVGA-class and uses AMR mono audio. Expect roughly a 20x to 100x size reduction. That is also why 3G2 is the wrong target for "I want to keep the original quality" — pick MP4 or MKV for that.

Can I keep my WTV recording at 1080p when I save to 3G2?

The 3GPP2 spec does not block higher resolutions outright, but every real 3G2 player from the format's era assumed QCIF or QVGA, and most ignore frames larger than CIF (352x288). You can set a custom Width x Height in Advanced Options, but the file will read as nonstandard 3G2 and will not gain you anything over saving as MP4. The honest answer is: if you need 1080p, do not pick 3G2.

My WTV file has Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. What happens to it?

The 3G2 spec does not list AC-3, and CDMA handsets never decoded 5.1 channels. The converter downmixes to mono or stereo and re-encodes to AMR (AMR-NB at 4.75-12.2 kbps, or AMR-WB at 6.6-23.85 kbps). If preserving the surround track matters, convert to MP4 or MKV instead — both can carry AC-3 or E-AC-3 untouched.

What about WTV recordings with the broadcast flag set?

Windows Media Center honored the broadcast flag for cable and CableCARD recordings, marking them as protected. Some protected WTV files refuse to open in third-party tools at all; for those that do open, the conversion re-encodes through a clean MPEG-4 pipeline and the output 3G2 carries no DRM (3G2 has no protection scheme defined). Only convert content you have the legal right to reuse — broadcast restrictions still apply to the underlying material.

Why does my converter offer AMR audio instead of EVRC or QCELP?

The 3GPP2 spec lists EVRC, EVRC-B, EVRC-WB, 13K (QCELP), SMV, and VMR-WB as the CDMA voice codecs, but those encoders are not part of any current open-source media stack — ffmpeg, for example, can decode QCELP but not encode it. AMR-NB and AMR-WB are the practically universal fallback, and players that accept 3G2 will also accept AMR inside it. If you specifically need an EVRC-encoded 3G2 (e.g., for a CDMA emulator that checks the codec ID), you will need a vendor SDK rather than a browser converter.

Should I convert to 3G2 or just to 3GP?

If a downstream tool explicitly demands "3GPP2" or .3g2, you need 3G2. Otherwise 3GP is the safer pick — it has broader codec support (notably HE-AAC v2 and AMR-WB+), it was used by far more handsets globally, and most "play this old mobile clip" software defaults to 3GP. Use WTV to 3GP unless you have a CDMA-specific reason for 3G2.

How do I play a 3G2 file on Windows or macOS today?

The most reliable player is VLC — it ships with 3G2 demuxers built in and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. ffmpeg, MPC-HC, MPV, PotPlayer, and KMPlayer also handle 3G2. Native players (Windows Movies & TV, macOS QuickTime on modern macOS) generally do not. If a clip plays without sound, that usually means the audio track is QCELP or EVRC and your player lacks the CDMA voice decoder — VLC handles QCELP playback fine.