Convert MPEG to WTV — Free Online Tool
Convert MPEG files (MPEG-1/MPEG-2 video with MP2 audio) to WTV format for use with Windows Media Center, re-encoding the video stream to H.264 and audio to AAC. This makes legacy broadcast recordings and DVD-compatible MPEG content compatible with Windows Vista/7/10 Media Center's DVR library and metadata system.
to
FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
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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
MPEG files use older MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video compression and typically carry MP2 audio — codecs that Windows Media Center's WTV container does not natively store. This conversion fully re-encodes the video stream from MPEG-2 to H.264 using libx264 with a CRF value of 23, which produces a visually near-lossless result at a significantly smaller file size than the original MPEG-2 stream. The audio is simultaneously transcoded from MP2 to AAC at 128k bitrate, which is the standard audio codec for WTV files in Windows Media Center. Because both streams are being re-encoded rather than remuxed, the process is CPU-intensive but results in a file that WTV-aware software can read, index, and enrich with broadcast metadata.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg binary. All processing in the browser version runs via FFmpeg.wasm, a WebAssembly port of the same FFmpeg engine, so the command is identical to what you would run locally on your desktop. |
-i input.mpeg
|
Specifies the input MPEG file, which contains an MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video stream and typically an MP2 audio stream in a program stream or transport stream container. |
-c:v libx264
|
Re-encodes the MPEG-1/2 video stream to H.264 using the libx264 encoder, which is required because the WTV container as used by Windows Media Center expects H.264 rather than the legacy MPEG-2 codec. |
-c:a aac
|
Transcodes the MP2 audio from the source MPEG file to AAC using FFmpeg's built-in AAC encoder, producing audio that is natively compatible with the WTV format and Windows Media Center's playback engine. |
-crf 23
|
Sets the H.264 Constant Rate Factor to 23, which is the libx264 default and represents a good balance between visual quality and file size for converting standard-definition MPEG-2 broadcast content. Lower values (e.g., 18) increase quality and file size. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the AAC audio bitrate to 128 kilobits per second, which is sufficient for mono or stereo TV audio content and is the standard audio bitrate target for WTV files generated from broadcast recordings. |
output.wtv
|
Defines the output filename with the .wtv extension, which instructs FFmpeg to mux the encoded H.264 video and AAC audio into the ASF-based WTV container recognized by Windows Media Center and compatible media players. |
Common Use Cases
- Importing old MPEG-2 recordings captured from a TV capture card into a Windows 7 Media Center library so they appear alongside recorded TV shows
- Converting MPEG files ripped from DVD video discs into WTV so Windows Media Center can play them with its 10-foot UI on a home theater PC
- Archiving legacy VHS-to-MPEG digitization projects into WTV format to take advantage of Media Center's metadata embedding and thumbnail generation
- Migrating a collection of MPEG-1 video files from an old PVR appliance into a Windows Media Center DVR library for unified playback
- Preparing MPEG broadcast recordings for playback on a Windows Vista Home Premium HTPC that requires WTV or DVR-MS format for its recorded TV section
- Converting MPEG content to WTV to leverage the format's support for multiple audio tracks, which MPEG containers lack in this context
Frequently Asked Questions
Because MPEG-2 is already a lossy format and the conversion re-encodes to H.264, there is a second generation of compression loss. However, with the default CRF value of 23 applied to libx264, the quality degradation is minimal and typically imperceptible on standard-definition broadcast content. H.264 at CRF 23 is generally more efficient than MPEG-2 at equivalent quality, so in many cases the WTV file will actually look comparable or cleaner while being smaller.
WTV files as used by Windows Media Center are optimized around AAC and MP3 audio rather than the MP2 codec common in MPEG-1/2 containers. MP2 is a broadcast-era audio standard that predates AAC, and while technically possible to mux, AAC provides better compatibility with Media Center's playback engine and metadata system. The transcoded 128k AAC audio will be perceptually very close to the original MP2 track for typical TV and DVD-sourced content.
Windows 10 removed Windows Media Center, so native WTV playback requires a third-party reinstall of Media Center or an alternative player like Media Player Classic-HC or Kodi with the appropriate WTV support. On Windows 7, WTV files created with H.264 video and AAC audio play natively in Media Center. The WTV container itself is well-documented and broadly supported by modern media players regardless of the operating system.
The FFmpeg command displayed on this page — 'ffmpeg -i input.mpeg -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k output.wtv' — can be run directly in a terminal on Windows, macOS, or Linux after installing FFmpeg from ffmpeg.org. Simply replace 'input.mpeg' with the full path to your file. For batch conversion of multiple MPEG files on Windows, you can use: 'for %f in (*.mpeg) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "%~nf.wtv"'.
The '-crf 23' flag controls H.264 quality on a scale from 0 (lossless) to 51 (worst). Lowering the CRF value increases quality and file size — use '-crf 18' for a high-quality archive conversion of precious recordings, or '-crf 28' if storage space is a concern and the source MPEG content is standard definition. For most MPEG-2 broadcast source material, values between 18 and 28 represent the practical useful range.
MPEG containers in the MPEG-1/2 program stream format do not support embedded subtitles or chapters in the way MKV or MP4 do, so there is no subtitle or chapter data to carry forward. The WTV format does support subtitle tracks, but since the source MPEG has none, the output will not contain any. WTV's metadata embedding feature — such as program title, description, and channel data — is typically populated by Windows Media Center's EPG system rather than by FFmpeg during conversion.
Technical Notes
MPEG program streams (.mpeg, .mpg) carrying MPEG-2 video are a fixed-bitrate, GOP-based format designed for broadcast and disc distribution, typically at resolutions up to 720x576 (PAL) or 720x480 (NTSC). The WTV container was introduced in Windows Vista as a successor to DVR-MS and is structured around ASF (Advanced Systems Format), the same container underlying WMA and WMV files. Re-encoding MPEG-2 to H.264 inside WTV substantially reduces file size — MPEG-2 broadcast streams commonly run at 4–8 Mbps, while CRF 23 H.264 of equivalent-quality content typically lands at 1–3 Mbps for SD material. One known limitation is that MPEG files from some hardware capture cards include closed-caption data embedded in the MPEG-2 video stream (line 21 VBI data), which will be lost during re-encoding. WTV supports multiple audio tracks, a feature MPEG containers lack in this pipeline, but this conversion produces a single AAC audio track. The WTV format does not support chapters, so no chapter structure is created in the output regardless of source content.