Convert MOV to WTV — Free Online Tool
Convert MOV (QuickTime) files to WTV (Windows Television) format using FFmpeg directly in your browser. This conversion re-encodes your MOV video with H.264 (libx264) and AAC audio into the Windows Media Center DVR container, making professionally captured footage compatible with Windows Vista/7 Media Center playback and archival workflows.
to
FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
Drop your MOV file here
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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
MOV is a flexible Apple QuickTime container that can carry a wide variety of codecs including H.264, H.265, VP9, MJPEG, and lossless formats. WTV is a much more constrained container designed specifically for Windows Media Center broadcast recordings, supporting only H.264 or MJPEG video and AAC or MP3 audio. During this conversion, FFmpeg re-encodes the MOV video stream using libx264 with a CRF of 23 (a balanced quality-to-size setting) and encodes the audio as AAC at 128k bitrate. Because the containers differ fundamentally in structure and metadata schemas, this is a full transcode — not a simple remux. Notably, any transparency data (alpha channels), chapter markers, or lossless codecs present in the MOV source will be discarded, as WTV does not support these features. The resulting WTV file carries broadcast-style metadata structures recognizable by Windows Media Center.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg binary. In the browser-based tool, this runs via FFmpeg.wasm (WebAssembly) entirely client-side — no data leaves your machine. When running locally on your desktop, this calls your installed FFmpeg executable and is suitable for files over 1GB. |
-i input.mov
|
Specifies the input MOV (QuickTime) file. FFmpeg reads the container and detects all streams inside — which may include H.264, H.265, ProRes, or other video codecs alongside AAC, FLAC, or other audio codecs — before deciding how to process each for the WTV output. |
-c:v libx264
|
Re-encodes the video stream using the H.264 encoder (libx264). This is required because WTV only supports H.264 or MJPEG video, so any source codec in the MOV — including H.265, VP9, or lossless formats — must be transcoded to H.264 to be compatible with the WTV container. |
-c:a aac
|
Re-encodes the audio stream to AAC, one of only two audio codecs WTV supports (the other being MP3). Even if the source MOV already contains AAC audio, FFmpeg will re-encode it because the container restructuring requires the audio to be repackaged according to WTV's broadcast recording format. |
-crf 23
|
Sets the Constant Rate Factor for the libx264 H.264 encoder to 23, which is the default balanced setting offering good quality at a moderate file size. For WTV playback on a home theater PC, CRF 23 is generally sufficient; lower values like 18 produce sharper results at the cost of a larger WTV file. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the AAC audio bitrate to 128 kilobits per second, a standard quality level for stereo audio in a broadcast-style WTV recording. If your MOV source has high-fidelity audio (e.g., FLAC or high-bitrate AAC), increasing this to 192k or 256k will better preserve audio quality in the WTV output. |
output.wtv
|
Specifies the output filename with the .wtv extension, which tells FFmpeg to mux the re-encoded H.264 video and AAC audio into the Windows Television container format recognized by Windows Media Center for DVR playback and library management. |
Common Use Cases
- Importing professionally shot MOV footage from a Canon or Sony camera into a Windows Vista/7 Media Center library for TV-style playback on a home theater PC
- Archiving QuickTime screen recordings or tutorials into WTV format so they integrate seamlessly into a Windows Media Center DVD/DVR collection alongside recorded TV shows
- Converting MOV files captured in Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve for playback on a Windows Media Center extender device such as an Xbox 360
- Migrating a library of MOV-based interview recordings into WTV containers for consistent organization within a Windows Media Center metadata-embedded archive
- Testing WTV file compatibility by converting a short MOV clip before committing to a batch conversion of a large MOV video archive
- Generating a WTV file from a MOV source to inspect how Windows Media Center reads and displays embedded metadata for broadcast-style content
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, some quality loss is expected because this is a full transcode — the video is re-encoded using H.264 at CRF 23 and the audio is re-encoded to AAC at 128k, regardless of what codec the source MOV used. If your MOV already contained H.264 video, the re-encoding introduces a second generation of lossy compression. To minimize quality loss, lower the CRF value (e.g., CRF 18 gives noticeably higher quality at the cost of a larger file). WTV does not support lossless codecs, so lossless MOV sources will always result in some degradation.
Both are lost. MOV supports chapter markers and alpha channel transparency (for example, ProRes 4444 with an alpha layer), but WTV supports neither. Chapter data will be silently dropped during the conversion, and any transparency in the video will be composited against a black background since H.264 in the WTV container has no mechanism to carry an alpha channel. If preserving chapters or transparency is important, WTV is not a suitable target format for your use case.
WTV files are primarily designed for Windows Media Center, not Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player on Windows 7 can play WTV files natively if the appropriate codecs are installed, but support is inconsistent on Windows 8 and later since Microsoft discontinued Media Center. If broader Windows playback compatibility is your goal, converting the MOV to MP4 or WMV would be a more practical choice.
Adjust the -crf value in the command. CRF (Constant Rate Factor) controls quality for libx264: lower numbers mean higher quality and larger files, higher numbers mean lower quality and smaller files. The range for WTV-compatible H.264 encoding is 0 (mathematically lossless) to 51 (very poor quality), with 23 being the default balanced setting. For example, use -crf 18 for near-transparent quality or -crf 28 for a smaller file with visible compression. Similarly, change -b:a 128k to -b:a 192k or -b:a 256k if you need higher audio fidelity.
By default, the FFmpeg command shown here maps only the first audio stream from the MOV file. WTV does support multiple audio tracks, so if your MOV contains multiple audio streams (e.g., a director's commentary track alongside the main audio), you can add -map 0:v -map 0:a to the command to include all audio streams. However, each audio stream will be individually re-encoded to AAC at the specified bitrate.
Yes, on Windows you can use a simple for loop in Command Prompt: for %f in (*.mov) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "%~nf.wtv". On macOS or Linux, use: for f in *.mov; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "${f%.mov}.wtv"; done. This is especially useful if you have more than 1GB of files to convert, since the browser-based tool has a 1GB per-file limit while local FFmpeg handles any file size.
Technical Notes
WTV is a legacy container tied to the Windows Media Center ecosystem introduced in Windows Vista, and its codec support is deliberately narrow to match broadcast TV recording requirements: only libx264 or MJPEG for video, and AAC or MP3 for audio. MOV files, by contrast, may contain H.265/HEVC, VP9, lossless PNG sequences, FLAC audio, or multi-channel Opus — none of which are compatible with WTV and all of which require transcoding. The -movflags +faststart flag used to optimize MOV files for web streaming has no equivalent in WTV and is omitted from the output command. WTV does support metadata embedding (show name, episode info, broadcast timestamps) which Windows Media Center reads and displays, but these fields are populated from broadcast stream data and are not automatically mapped from MOV metadata during FFmpeg conversion — you would need to use a tool like MCEBuddy or manual metadata injection to populate WTV-specific metadata fields post-conversion. File sizes will vary significantly depending on the source MOV codec: an H.265 MOV re-encoded to H.264 at CRF 23 will typically produce a noticeably larger WTV file, while a high-bitrate ProRes MOV will produce a much smaller WTV output at the same CRF setting.