WTV to FLAC Converter

How to Convert WTV to FLAC Online

1. Upload Your WTV File: Drag and drop or click "Add Files" to select one or more .wtv recordings from your Windows Media Center library (the default folder is C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV). Batch upload is supported, and Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared.
2. Pick Compression Level: The slider runs 1-12, where higher means smaller files at the cost of slower encoding — quality is identical at every level because FLAC is lossless. The FFmpeg encoder default is 5, which is a sensible balance; level 8 matches the reference Xiph encoder's "best" preset; levels 9-12 are extreme presets that rarely shave more than another 1-2% off the file.
3. Set Audio Channel, Sample Rate, and Trim (Optional): Leave Audio Channel and Audio Sample Rate at "Original" to keep the broadcast track untouched (typically 48 kHz stereo from AC-3, or 48 kHz from MPEG-1 Layer II). Downmix to Mono for talk/news archives, or pick 44.1 kHz if you need CD-rate output. Use Trim to clip leading channel idents or trailing dead air before the encode.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert." The video track is discarded and only the audio is re-encoded into FLAC. No sign-up, no watermark, no email required.

Why Convert WTV to FLAC?

WTV is the proprietary container Microsoft introduced with the Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 on Vista and shipped as the default DVR format in Windows 7. It wraps MPEG-2 video with either MPEG-1 Layer II or Dolby Digital AC-3 audio, plus EPG metadata and an optional DRM flag (CGMS-A) that the broadcaster sets per program. Windows Media Center itself was removed from Windows 10 in 2015, leaving WTV files orphaned on millions of drives — and the lossy AC-3/MP2 audio inside them is increasingly hard to play back on modern devices. Extracting that audio into FLAC gives you a lossless, open-format archive that will outlive the original container.

• Concert and live-music recordings — Pulling the stereo AC-3 track out of an off-air concert and saving it as FLAC means you can re-encode to any future format (Opus, AAC) without compounding generation loss. The original AC-3 is already lossy, so FLAC preserves that source bit-for-bit; you cannot recover what AC-3 discarded, but you avoid losing any more.
• Radio drama, audiobooks, and talk shows — Many cable channels carried serialized radio plays and interview programs that were never released commercially. A FLAC archive at original 48 kHz is the closest you can get to a master, and the format is supported natively on Windows 10+, macOS, iOS, and Android.
• Sports calls and broadcast commentary — The play-by-play track from a recorded game is often the only reason to keep a multi-gigabyte WTV. Extracting just the audio drops 90%+ of the file size while keeping the announcer's call at full fidelity.
• Source material for podcasts and YouTube essays — Editors typically need a clean audio stem they can cut without re-encoding. FLAC is lossless, edit-friendly in Audacity, Reaper, and Premiere, and ships embedded STREAMINFO metadata so DAWs detect sample rate and channels automatically.
• Long-term archival before WMC tooling disappears — The Windows 7 ecosystem hit end of extended support in January 2020, and the last ESU year ended in January 2023. Tools that still parse .wtv are dwindling; pulling the audio now into a Xiph-maintained format (FLAC 1.0 was released July 20, 2001 and is still actively maintained) future-proofs the recording.
• Sharing only the audio without DRM headaches — If a particular recording is unencrypted (most broadcast-flag-free programs in the US are), FLAC extraction strips out the WTV container entirely, removing the chain-of-custody to Media Center and producing a clean, portable audio file.

WTV vs FLAC — Format Comparison

FLAC Compression Level Quick Guide

Note: FLAC's compression is fully lossless at every level — only file size and encoding time change. Decoding speed is roughly constant across levels.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why bother with lossless FLAC when the WTV audio is already lossy AC-3 or MP2?

You are right that FLAC cannot restore the data AC-3 or MPEG-1 Layer II discarded — that audio is already lossy at the source. The point of going to FLAC is to stop the loss from compounding. If you later want an MP3 for your phone, or an Opus file for a podcast, you can re-encode from the FLAC without a third generation of psychoacoustic damage. Keeping the master in a lossy format and transcoding from it stacks artifacts; keeping it in FLAC does not.

Will this work on a DRM-protected WTV file?

No, and no online tool can. When Windows Media Center records a program flagged by the broadcaster as copy-protected (CGMS-A), the audio and video streams are encrypted, and decryption is locked to the specific Media Center PC that recorded the file. If your .wtv plays back only on the original recording PC and refuses to open elsewhere, it is DRM-locked and cannot be converted by any third party — including us. Unencrypted broadcast-flag-free recordings (the majority in the US) convert without issue.

What audio format is actually inside my WTV?

Almost always one of two: Dolby Digital AC-3 at 192-448 kbps for digital cable, satellite, or ATSC over-the-air, or MPEG-1 Layer II at 192-384 kbps for older analog NTSC captures and some European DVB broadcasts. You don't need to know which — the converter reads the stream type from the container and re-encodes whatever is there into FLAC. If you want to know in advance, MediaInfo (free) shows the codec for any .wtv.

Should I downmix 5.1 surround to stereo?

If your WTV is from digital cable or Blu-ray-rip-style ATSC and contains a 5.1 AC-3 track, leaving Audio Channel at "Original" preserves all six channels in the FLAC. That is the right choice for archival. Downmix to stereo only if you specifically need a two-channel file for a portable player or web upload — FLAC stores 5.1 natively, and most modern players (VLC, foobar2000, Apple Music since Spatial Audio rollout) handle it fine.

Do I lose quality going from AC-3 to FLAC?

No. FLAC is bit-exact on the PCM samples it receives. The decode of AC-3 produces PCM samples, and FLAC stores those samples losslessly. The only loss already happened when the broadcaster encoded to AC-3 in the first place; the WTV-to-FLAC step adds zero additional loss.

Will the resulting FLAC file be smaller than the original WTV?

Usually yes, often dramatically — because you are throwing away the MPEG-2 video, which dominates the WTV's size. A 1-hour HD recording is typically 4-8 GB as WTV; the same hour of audio as FLAC is usually 350-600 MB at original sample rate, or ~250 MB downmixed to stereo. If you are extracting audio just to save space, this is by far the biggest win.

Why does my file have multiple audio tracks?

Some broadcasts ship a secondary audio program (SAP) for Spanish, descriptive narration, or director commentary. The converter extracts the primary track by default. If you specifically need the SAP, a desktop tool like FFmpeg lets you select stream index 0:a:1 — that level of control is not currently exposed in the web UI.

Is FLAC supported by my phone or DAP?

FLAC plays natively on Android (since 3.1), iOS (since 11), Windows 10/11, macOS 10.13+, and every modern digital audio player from Sony, Fiio, Astell&Kern, and HiBy. It does not play in the default Apple Music app on older iOS versions or in some car infotainment systems built before 2017 — for those cases, a parallel FLAC to MP3 export at 320 kbps is the usual workaround.

What if I only need part of the recording?

Use the Trim option in step 3 to set start and end timestamps before encoding — that avoids producing a 600 MB FLAC just to crop the last five minutes later. For finer-grained editing after the fact, our Audio Cutter accepts FLAC input and lets you slice with sample accuracy. If you want a quick MP3 instead of lossless, see WTV to MP3; for an uncompressed PCM master, see WTV to WAV.