WTV to WMV Converter

How to Convert WTV to WMV Online

1. Upload Your WTV File: Drag and drop or click "+ Add Files" to select one or more .wtv recordings exported from Windows Media Center. Batch upload is supported — convert a whole folder of recorded shows in one pass.
2. Pick a Quality Preset: The default is "Very High (Recommended)". Choose Highest for archival masters, High or Medium for shareable copies, or Low / Very Low / Lowest when you need to fit a long recording into a small file. Defaults: WMV 2 video and WMA v2 audio — both can be swapped under Advanced (WMV 1 / WMV 2, or WMA v1 / WMA v2).
3. Resolution and File Size (Optional): Keep the original resolution, pick a preset (4320p down to 144p), set an exact width and/or height, scale by percentage, or switch File Compression mode to Constant Bitrate, Variable Bitrate, Constant Quality, or Constraint Quality to target a specific output size.
4. Trim and Convert: Use Trim to drop commercial breaks or pull a clip — set Start and Duration in seconds or HH:MM:SS.sss. Click Convert and download each WMV file individually or as a ZIP. 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.

Why Convert WTV to WMV?

WTV (Windows Recorded TV Show) is the container Microsoft introduced with the Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 for Vista, then standardised across all Media Center editions of Windows 7. It carries MPEG-2 or H.264 video with MPEG-1 Layer II or Dolby Digital AC-3 audio, plus the EPG metadata and broadcast-flag DRM that Media Center attached to each recording. WMV (Windows Media Video) is Microsoft's general-purpose video codec family in an ASF container — playable in Windows Media Player, embeddable in PowerPoint, and accepted by Windows-native editors. Converting WTV to WMV strips the Media Center scaffolding and gives you a portable file that plays anywhere ASF/WMV is supported.

• Outlive Windows Media Center. WMC was removed from Windows 10 in July 2015, so newly installed Windows 10/11 PCs cannot open .wtv natively. Re-encoding to WMV keeps your recordings playable on every modern Windows machine.
• PowerPoint and Office embeds. PowerPoint accepts WMV directly; it will not embed WTV. Convert lectures, sports highlights, or news clips so they play inline in slides without external players.
• Smaller, shareable files. A one-hour 1080i broadcast in WTV can sit at 5-8 GB. Re-encoding to WMV at the High or Medium preset typically lands the same hour in the 700 MB-1.5 GB range, easy to upload to OneDrive, SharePoint, or email.
• Editing in Windows-native tools. Windows Movie Maker (legacy), Microsoft Clipchamp, Camtasia, and most other Windows editors import WMV cleanly but stumble on WTV's mixed MPEG-2/H.264 streams and EPG metadata.
• Media servers and old set-top boxes. Plex, Jellyfin, and many older smart-TV / Xbox apps are happier transcoding from WMV than from WTV's broadcaster-flavoured stream.
• Skip the commercials. Use Trim to keep just the segments you want — the commercial-removal workflow that used to require DeskShare or VideoReDo passes on the original WTV.

WTV vs WMV — Format Comparison

WMV Codec & Quality Quick Guide

Frequently Asked Questions

Why won't my WTV files play on Windows 10 or Windows 11?

Because Microsoft removed Windows Media Center from Windows 10 in July 2015, and no version of Windows since then ships the WTV demuxer. Converting to WMV (or MP4) gives you a file the built-in Movies & TV app and Windows Media Player Legacy can open without any extra codecs.

What codec does the WMV output use, and can I change it?

The defaults are WMV 2 video and WMA v2 audio. Both are selectable under Advanced — you can choose WMV 1 if you need maximum compatibility with very old Windows installations, but for almost every modern use case WMV 2 is the right pick. WMV 9 / VC-1 (the SMPTE-standardised version of WMV 9) is also part of the same family.

Will the converter remove DRM from a copy-protected WTV?

No, and you should not expect it to. WTV recordings carry the broadcaster's "broadcast flag" only when the source channel set it; antenna and most cable channels record DRM-free, while certain premium and pay-TV channels mark recordings as protected. DRM-protected .wtv files generally fail to convert (or convert to an empty/garbled output). For DRM-free WTV — by far the common case for over-the-air recordings — conversion is straightforward.

How do I cut out commercials during conversion?

Use the Trim controls to set a Start time and Duration to keep one continuous segment. For a single break in the middle of the recording you can run two passes — one for the segment before the break and one for the segment after — then rejoin them in any video editor. This is the same split-and-rejoin approach Media Center commercial-skip add-ons used; if you only need to keep one chunk (the show, the highlight, the news segment) a single Trim pass is enough.

How big will the WMV output be compared to the WTV?

A typical one-hour 1080i WTV recording is 5-8 GB because broadcast streams are lightly compressed. Re-encoded at the High preset, the same hour usually lands at 1-1.5 GB; at Medium it drops to 700-900 MB. If you need a specific target, switch File Compression to Constant Bitrate or set a target file-size percentage.

Can I keep the original resolution and frame rate?

Yes — leave Resolution on "Keep original" and the converter preserves the source dimensions (1920x1080, 1280x720, 720x480 for SD, etc.) and frame rate (typically 29.97 fps for NTSC broadcasts or 25 fps for PAL). Use the resolution presets only when you specifically want to downscale.

Will WMV play on a Mac or iPhone?

VLC plays WMV on macOS and iOS without issues, but Apple's native players (QuickTime, Photos, the iOS Files preview) do not support WMV. If you mainly target Apple devices, convert directly to WTV to MP4 or WTV to MOV instead — H.264 in an MP4/MOV container is the universal pick.

What's the difference between WMV and ASF?

ASF (Advanced Systems Format) is the container; WMV (and WMA) are the codecs that ride inside it. A .wmv file is technically an ASF container that holds a WMV video stream — that's why some tools list "ASF" and "WMV" interchangeably. If you have an .asf file with non-WMV streams, see ASF to WMV.

Can I batch-convert a whole season of recordings at once?

Yes. Drop every .wtv into the upload area, set Quality and Resolution once, and click Convert — each file is processed with the same settings and you can grab them individually or as a ZIP. For very large libraries you can also compress the resulting WMV files afterwards to shave more space.