Convert AVI to WMA — Free Online Tool
Convert AVI video files to WMA audio by extracting and re-encoding the audio track using the WMAv2 codec — Microsoft's proprietary Windows Media Audio format. This is useful when you only need the audio from an AVI file and want a format natively supported by Windows Media Player and legacy Microsoft ecosystem devices.
to
FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
Drop your AVI file here
or click to browse
Free — no uploads, no signups. Your files never leave your browser.
Settings
Note: Browser-based encoding uses approximate quality targets. For precise CRF compression, copy the FFmpeg command above and run it on your desktop.
Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
AVI is a multimedia container that holds synchronized video and audio streams — typically with audio encoded in MP3 or AAC. During this conversion, FFmpeg discards the video stream entirely and re-encodes the audio track from its original AVI-embedded codec into WMAv2 (Windows Media Audio version 2), the default and most widely compatible WMA codec. Because the source audio codec (likely MP3 or AAC) differs from the WMA target, this is a full transcode — not a stream copy — meaning the audio signal is decoded and then re-encoded at the target bitrate, which introduces a small amount of generation loss. The output is a standalone .wma file with no video component.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg tool — in the browser this runs via FFmpeg.wasm (WebAssembly), and the same command works identically on a desktop FFmpeg installation for files over 1GB or batch processing scenarios. |
-i input.avi
|
Specifies the input AVI file. FFmpeg reads both the video and audio streams from this container, though only the audio stream will be used in the WMA output since WMA cannot carry video. |
-c:a wmav2
|
Sets the audio codec to WMAv2 (Windows Media Audio version 2), Microsoft's standard lossy audio codec and the default choice for .wma files. WMAv2 offers better compression efficiency than the original WMAv1 and is supported by virtually all WMA-compatible players and devices. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the audio output bitrate to 128 kilobits per second, which is the default for this tool and provides a reasonable quality-to-file-size balance for music and spoken word content in WMA format. Increase to 192k or 256k for higher fidelity, or reduce to 96k for voice recordings where file size matters more. |
output.wma
|
The output filename with a .wma extension, which tells FFmpeg to wrap the encoded WMAv2 audio stream inside an ASF container — the standard file format for Windows Media Audio files. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting narration or dialogue from an AVI lecture recording to load onto an older Windows CE or Windows Mobile device that natively plays WMA files
- Pulling the audio commentary track from an AVI sports broadcast clip to distribute via a Windows Media-based streaming server that expects WMA input
- Converting AVI-recorded interviews or podcasts to WMA for playback in legacy Windows Media Player 9/10 environments in corporate or educational settings locked to older Windows versions
- Stripping the audio from AVI game footage or screen captures to produce a lightweight WMA file for use as background music in a Windows Movie Maker project
- Reducing file size significantly by discarding the video stream of a large AVI and keeping only the WMA audio for archival or distribution of audio-only content
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, some quality loss is unavoidable. The audio in an AVI file is typically already encoded in a lossy format like MP3 or AAC, so converting it to WMA involves decoding that lossy audio and re-encoding it into WMAv2 — a process called transcoding. Each re-encoding step introduces generation loss. To minimize this, use the highest bitrate option available (320k). If preserving original quality is critical, consider keeping the audio in its original codec rather than converting to WMA.
No. WMA is a pure audio container format and cannot store video data. FFmpeg automatically drops the video stream when targeting a .wma output file. If you need to keep the video, you would need to convert to a multimedia container like MP4 or MKV instead.
WMAv1 is the original Windows Media Audio codec introduced with Windows Media Player 6, while WMAv2 is an improved version with better audio quality at equivalent bitrates and broader device compatibility. This tool uses WMAv2 (the -c:a wmav2 flag), which is the standard choice for virtually all modern WMA use cases and is supported by nearly every device or software that accepts WMA files.
AVI does support multiple audio tracks, but WMA is a single-track audio format and cannot carry more than one audio stream. By default, FFmpeg will select the first (or best-ranked) audio stream from the AVI and encode only that one into the WMA output. If your AVI has multiple audio tracks and you need a specific one, you can add -map 0:a:1 (or the relevant stream index) to the FFmpeg command before the output filename to select it explicitly.
The bitrate is controlled by the -b:a flag in the command. The default is 128k, which offers a reasonable balance of quality and file size for WMA. To increase quality, change it to -b:a 192k or -b:a 256k. To reduce file size (for example, for voice-only recordings), you can lower it to -b:a 96k or -b:a 64k. The full modified command would look like: ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:a wmav2 -b:a 192k output.wma
FFmpeg will attempt to copy compatible metadata tags from the AVI input to the WMA output automatically. However, AVI has limited and inconsistently implemented metadata support, so tags may be sparse or absent in the source file. WMA does support rich metadata (title, artist, album, year, etc.) via its ASF container, so any tags that do exist in the AVI should carry over. You can also add or override metadata manually by appending flags like -metadata title='My Recording' to the command.
Technical Notes
WMA files are stored inside an ASF (Advanced Systems Format) container, Microsoft's proprietary wrapper designed with streaming in mind. WMAv2, used here, encodes audio at fixed bitrates ranging from 64k to 320k — there is no variable bitrate or lossless mode in this tool's output configuration. The AVI input may carry its audio in MP3, AAC, PCM, or other codecs depending on how the AVI was originally created; regardless of the source codec, FFmpeg will fully decode and re-encode it to WMAv2. One notable limitation: if the AVI source has audio encoded in a very high-quality PCM or lossless format, the WMA output at 128k will represent a meaningful quality reduction, so users with high-fidelity sources should bump the bitrate accordingly. WMA also does not support multiple audio tracks in a single file, so only one audio stream from the AVI will survive the conversion. DRM features of the WMA format are not applied by FFmpeg during this conversion, so the output file will be unprotected.