WTV to WMA Converter

How to Convert WTV to WMA Online

1. Upload Your WTV File: Drag and drop or click "+ Add Files" to select recordings from \Users\Public\Recorded TV\ or wherever Windows Media Center saved them. Batch upload is supported — queue an entire season at once.
2. Pick Quality Preset: The default is Highest. Drop to High or Medium if the original AC-3 broadcast was already low-bitrate (TV typically ships 192-384 kbps AC-3), or switch from Quality Preset to Custom Bitrate to lock a specific Constant Bitrate (CBR) or Variable Bitrate (VBR) target. Custom Bitrate exposes the WMA2 ladder from 8 kbps up to 320 kbps.
3. Adjust Audio Channel, Sample Rate, and Trim (Optional): Audio Channel and Audio Sample Rate both default to Original — leave them to preserve the broadcast's stereo 48 kHz track, or downmix to Mono and downsample to 22.05 kHz for voice-only recordings. Use Trim to cut commercials, intros, or outros down to the second (HH:MM:SS.mmm) before extracting.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. The file is uploaded over an encrypted connection, decoded on our servers, and the WMA stream is muxed into an ASF container — no sign-up, no watermark.

Why Convert WTV to WMA?

WTV is the container Windows Media Center wrote recorded TV into from Windows 7 onward, replacing the older DVR-MS format (Microsoft Learn). Each WTV file carries MPEG-2 video plus an MPEG-1 Layer II or Dolby Digital AC-3 audio track captured at up to 30 Mbps. Since Microsoft removed Media Center from Windows 10 in 2015, those recordings are awkward to play anywhere outside the original PC. Stripping the video and keeping just the audio as WMA gives you a small, native-Windows file that plays in Windows Media Player, Groove, Sonos, and most car stereos without any codec packs.

• Talk-radio simulcasts and news broadcasts — WMA Voice (4.75-19.85 kbps) cuts a one-hour political interview down to a few megabytes while keeping speech crisp.
• Concerts and music specials — WMA2 at 192-256 kbps preserves the broadcast's stereo image at roughly half the bitrate of the original AC-3 track.
• Sermons, lectures, and podcasts recorded off TV — Mono at 64-96 kbps is plenty for spoken word and stays under most email attachment caps.
• Long-form archives for older Windows machines — Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8.1 PCs that lack modern codecs all play WMA out of the box; MP3 needed a separate decoder until Windows 7.
• Sonos and PlaysForSure devices — Sonos, Zune, and Xbox 360 hardware natively decode WMA2 and WMA Pro without re-encoding (Wikipedia: WMA).
• DRM-free re-mastering — if the broadcaster did not set the CGMS-A copy flag, you can save the audio as WMA and edit, tag, or re-encode it freely.

WTV vs WMA — Format Comparison

WMA Codec & Bitrate Quick Guide

For a one-hour HD broadcast, WMA2 at 192 kbps CBR lands around 84 MB; the same hour as WMA Voice 12.65 kbps drops to roughly 5.5 MB.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my WTV file fail to open on Windows 10 or 11?

Microsoft dropped Windows Media Center from Windows 10 in 2015, and Windows 11 never shipped it. Without Media Center installed, the system has no codec for the encrypted Stream Buffer Engine (SBE) streams inside a WTV file. Converting via xconvert sidesteps the missing codec — the decoder runs on our servers, not on the OS.

Can I extract audio from a copy-protected (DRM) WTV recording?

No. Microsoft built CGMS-A flag handling into the Stream Buffer Engine, so any broadcast where the rightsholder set the protection flag is locked to the recording PC. Those files cannot be re-encoded by any third-party tool — including this one — without breaking copy protection. Recordings from over-the-air ATSC channels without the flag set will convert normally.

Should I pick WMA2, WMA Pro, or WMA Lossless for music broadcasts?

WMA2 at 192-256 kbps is the right default — the original AC-3 track in a TV broadcast tops out around 384 kbps, so anything higher just stores compression artifacts at higher precision. WMA Pro only makes sense if the source carried 5.1 surround (most US prime-time drama and HBO simulcasts do); WMA Lossless is overkill for broadcast audio that was lossy to begin with.

What is the difference between WMA1 (WMAV1) and WMA2 (WMAV2)?

WMA1 is the original 1999 codec; WMA2 (released later in 1999) refined the bit allocation and is what virtually every player today expects when it sees a .wma extension. Pick WMA2 unless you are specifically targeting a Windows 98-era device that only decodes WMA1.

Will the converted WMA play on my Sonos or in my car?

WMA2 and WMA Pro are part of the original PlaysForSure profile, so Sonos speakers, older Xbox 360, Zune, and most factory car head units (Ford Sync, older Toyota Entune, BMW iDrive pre-2017) decode them natively. WMA Voice is less universal — many car stereos skip it as an unrecognized format. If your target device is an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, convert to WMA-to-MP3 instead; Apple platforms do not ship WMA decoders.

How do I get just the commercials out of a one-hour recording?

Use the Trim controls in Advanced Options. The Trim Input dropdown accepts HH:MM:SS.mmm timestamps, so you can set Start to the moment the show resumes and Duration to the segment length. Repeat the conversion for each segment, then merge later if you want a single file. If you would rather trim after conversion, the Audio Cutter tool works on the resulting WMA.

What sample rate should I keep?

Leave Audio Sample Rate at Original. AC-3 broadcasts are almost always 48 kHz, MPEG-1 Layer II broadcasts are 48 kHz or 44.1 kHz, and resampling adds no quality — it only adds rounding error. Downsample to 22.05 kHz only if you also chose WMA Voice, which is capped there anyway.

Why is the WMA file much smaller than the WTV?

A one-hour HD WTV recording is typically 4-8 GB because it stores an entire MPEG-2 video stream at 8-15 Mbps. The audio track is only a few hundred kilobits per second of that total. Throwing the video away and re-encoding the audio at 128-192 kbps WMA2 reliably lands between 50 and 90 MB for a one-hour file — a 50-100x reduction with no audible loss.

Is there a file-size limit?

Free server-based conversion handles typical Media Center recordings (a 4 GB hour-long HD capture works). For multi-hour sports or movie marathons, split the WTV into segments first, or convert to a smaller intermediate like WTV to MP3 if WMA is not a hard requirement. The output WMA can be further shrunk with Compress WMA if you want a tighter target size.