Cut WTV

How to Cut WTV Files Online

1. Upload Your WTV File: Drag and drop or click "+ Add Files" to add a .wtv recording from your Windows Recorded TV library. Batch uploads are supported, and files stay in your browser session — they are not pushed to a third-party cloud.
2. Set Time Range: Enter the start time and either the duration or end time. Both decimal seconds (e.g. 45.5) and HH:MM:SS.sss (e.g. 00:12:30.250) work. Scrub the preview to pinpoint the moment a commercial break starts or the actual show begins after the broadcast leader.
3. Pick Quality Preset and Output Settings (Optional): Choose a Quality Preset (Highest to Lowest), set a target file size as a percentage, dial in a Constant Bitrate / Variable Bitrate / Constant Quality (CRF) value, or pick a Video Resolution preset (1080p, 720p) or custom width and height. Defaults keep the original MPEG-2 stream when possible.
4. Cut and Download: Click "Cut" to extract the selected segment. The clip writes back into a .wtv container — no sign-up, no watermark, no upload to a cloud you don't control.

Why Cut WTV?

WTV (Windows Recorded TV Show) is the container Windows Media Center writes when it records broadcast or cable TV. Microsoft's Stream Buffer Engine wraps MPEG-2 video with MPEG-1 Layer II or Dolby Digital AC-3 audio, captures up to 30 Mbps, and tags the file with show metadata, chapter points, and the broadcaster's CGMS-A copy-protection flag. The format replaced the older .dvr-ms container starting with the Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 and shipped as the default in Windows 7. Files land in \Users\Public\Recorded TV\ by default. Common reasons to cut:

• Stripping commercial breaks — over-the-air and cable recordings sit on disk at 6–18 GB per hour; removing 18–22 minutes of ads per broadcast hour reclaims 30%+ of the file.
• Extracting one episode from a multi-show block — Media Center sometimes captures back-to-back episodes into one .wtv when guide data overlaps; cut each episode out cleanly before archiving.
• Pulling a single clip for sharing — pull a 30-second highlight (a goal, a punchline, a news segment) instead of mailing a 4 GB hour-long recording. Most messaging apps and email services cap attachments well under 100 MB.
• Trimming the broadcast leader and trailer — broadcasters frequently start a recording 30–60 seconds early and end it 1–2 minutes late as a guard against schedule slip; cut the dead air before importing to an editor.
• Preparing for re-encode — cut the segment you actually want first, then run WTV to MP4 or WTV to MKV on the smaller clip so the lossy re-encode pass takes minutes instead of hours.
• Archiving away from Windows Media Center — Media Center was deprecated in Windows 8 and removed entirely from Windows 10; trim recordings to the parts worth keeping before the format becomes harder to play.

WTV vs DVR-MS vs MPG — Container Comparison

Property	WTV	DVR-MS	MPG (Program Stream)
Introduced	Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 / Windows 7	Windows XP Media Center Edition (2002)	MPEG-1 (1993) / MPEG-2 (1995)
Underlying container	Stream Buffer Engine (proprietary, ASF-derived)	ASF (Advanced Systems Format)	MPEG Program Stream
Video codec	MPEG-2 (H.262)	MPEG-2 (H.262)	MPEG-1, MPEG-2
Audio codec	MP1L2 or Dolby Digital AC-3	MP1L2 or AC-3	MP1L2, MP2, AC-3
Metadata	Show title, episode, EPG data, CGMS-A flag	Show title, EPG data	None (sidecar files only)
Copy-protection flag honored	Yes (CGMS-A)	Yes (CGMS-A)	No
Native Windows playback	Windows 7 / Windows 8 Media Center; not Windows 10+	Windows XP MCE through Windows 7	Most players
VLC support	Partial (video plays, audio often drops)	Yes	Yes
Sub-clip cut without re-encode	Yes, on GOP boundaries	Yes, on GOP boundaries	Yes, on GOP boundaries

Renaming a .wtv to .dvr-ms does not convert the file — the headers differ. Use Windows 7's right-click "Convert to .dvr-ms" option (or \Windows\ehome\WTVConverter.exe) on a Windows 7 machine, or transcode with a desktop tool.

Broadcast Bitrate Reference for WTV Sources

Source	Typical Video Bitrate	Audio	Hourly File Size
ATSC over-the-air HD (1080i)	12–19 Mbps	AC-3 5.1 (384–448 kbps)	6–10 GB
Cable HD (encrypted but flagged "copy freely")	10–17 Mbps	AC-3 5.1 (384 kbps)	5–9 GB
Cable SD (480i)	3–6 Mbps	AC-3 stereo or MP1L2 (192 kbps)	1.5–3 GB
ATSC over-the-air SD subchannel	1.5–4 Mbps	AC-3 stereo (128–192 kbps)	1–2 GB
QAM cable (clear)	up to 38 Mbps multiplexed	AC-3 5.1	varies

Bitrate varies by broadcaster and time slot — sports and live news encode hotter than scripted prime-time drama.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will cutting a WTV file re-encode the MPEG-2 stream?

When the cut points fall on a GOP boundary (an I-frame), the segment is stream-copied — the MPEG-2 video and AC-3 or MP1L2 audio are written into the new .wtv container unchanged, so quality is bit-identical to the source. Broadcast MPEG-2 typically places an I-frame every 0.5 seconds, so cuts land within half a second of the timestamp you enter. If a cut sits mid-GOP, the short leading slice up to the next I-frame may be re-encoded so the output decodes cleanly.

Why can't VLC or MPC-HC play my WTV file properly?

WTV uses Microsoft's Stream Buffer Engine, an ASF-derived container that ships official DirectShow demux filters only with Windows Media Center. VideoLAN's own forum threads document that VLC reads the MPEG-2 video but frequently drops or stutters the AC-3 audio, because the SBE audio framing differs from generic ASF. Workarounds: install the Media Center DirectShow filters (Windows 7 only), or convert to a standard container first via WTV to MP4 or WTV to MKV before editing or playback elsewhere.

Does this tool handle CGMS-A copy-protected recordings?

If the broadcaster set the copy-protection flag to "copy never" (CGMS-A), Windows Media Center encrypted the elementary streams at record time and the file is bound to the specific PC that made the recording. No editor — online or desktop — can extract clean MPEG-2 from an encrypted .wtv without the original machine's keys. Recordings flagged "copy freely" (the default for most US over-the-air ATSC) are not encrypted and cut without issue.

What's the difference between WTV and DVR-MS files?

DVR-MS is the older format from Windows XP Media Center Edition (2002), built directly on ASF. WTV replaced it starting with the Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 and became the default in Windows 7. WTV adds the Stream Buffer Engine for live-stream seek/pause/record without interrupting capture, plus richer EPG metadata. Both wrap MPEG-2 video with MP1L2 or AC-3 audio, so the codec payload is the same — only the container changed.

My recording starts 30 seconds before the show actually begins. How do I cut that off precisely?

Use the start-time field and enter 00:00:30 (or whatever the leader length is). Scrub the preview to confirm the show's opening frame, then nudge by tenths of a second if needed. The cutter snaps to the nearest preceding I-frame, so the actual start may be up to half a second earlier than your value — that's the trade for stream-copy speed. For frame-accurate edits, allow a re-encode pass on the leading slice.

Will chapter markers and show metadata survive the cut?

Show title, episode title, and EPG description in the WTV header are copied to the trimmed file. Chapter markers placed at commercial-break boundaries by Media Center are dropped, because the original chapter table is tied to the full recording's timeline — re-add markers in your editor of choice if you need them.

Can I cut multiple non-contiguous segments (e.g. four commercial breaks) in one pass?

This page extracts one segment per run. To strip all four breaks from a typical hour-long recording, run the cutter once per kept segment, then stitch them with a desktop tool such as ffmpeg -f concat or mkvmerge — keep the codec and resolution constant across cuts so the join can stream-copy. Or convert to a friendlier container first via WTV to MKV and edit there.

Should I keep the cut clip as WTV or convert to something else?

Keep WTV only if you're staying inside Windows Media Center on a Windows 7 or 8.1 machine — that's the one environment that plays it natively with audio intact. For everything else (Windows 10/11, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, smart TVs, editors), convert to WTV to MP4 for the broadest device support, or WTV to MKV if you want to keep multiple audio tracks and subtitles without re-encoding the MPEG-2 video.

Is there a file size limit?

The cut runs in your browser, so the practical limit is your device's available RAM and patience. A 10 GB hour-long HD recording works comfortably on a desktop with 16 GB RAM; on a laptop or older hardware, compress the WTV first, or run the cut on a desktop tool that streams from disk.