Convert TS to WMA — Free Online Tool
Convert TS broadcast stream files to WMA audio by extracting and transcoding the audio track using the wmav2 codec. Ideal for pulling audio content from recorded TV or transport stream captures into a Windows-compatible audio format for media players and legacy Windows software.
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FFmpeg Command
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Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
A MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS) file is a broadcast container designed to carry multiplexed video, audio, and data streams — often with multiple audio tracks, subtitles, and a video channel. Converting to WMA is an audio-only extraction process: the video stream is discarded entirely, and one audio track (typically the primary track) is decoded from its source codec — commonly AAC or AC-3 as found in broadcast TS files — and then re-encoded into Windows Media Audio v2 (wmav2) at the specified bitrate. This is a full transcode, not a remux, meaning the audio data is decoded to PCM and re-compressed into the lossy WMA format. The resulting WMA file contains only audio, with no video, subtitles, or chapter data, since WMA does not support those features.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg tool, the open-source multimedia processing engine that handles the demuxing of the TS broadcast container, decoding of its audio stream, and re-encoding into the WMA format. |
-i input.ts
|
Specifies the input file — an MPEG-2 Transport Stream (.ts), which may contain multiplexed video, one or more audio tracks, and subtitles as found in broadcast TV recordings or live stream captures. |
-c:a wmav2
|
Sets the audio codec to wmav2, Microsoft's second-generation Windows Media Audio codec. This is the standard and preferred WMA codec, offering better quality-to-bitrate efficiency than the older wmav1, and is compatible with all modern WMA-supporting players. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the audio output bitrate to 128 kilobits per second for the wmav2 stream. This is the default quality setting, providing a reasonable balance between file size and audio fidelity when transcoding from broadcast TS audio sources like AC-3 or AAC. |
output.wma
|
Specifies the output file with the .wma extension, telling FFmpeg to write the result into a Windows Media Audio container holding the re-encoded wmav2 audio stream, with no video or subtitle data. |
Common Use Cases
- Extract the audio commentary track from a recorded broadcast television TS file to create a standalone audio file for archiving or listening offline
- Convert a captured live stream or DVR recording in TS format into WMA for playback on older Windows Media Player installations or legacy Windows CE devices that natively support WMA
- Pull the audio from a broadcast news or sports TS recording to produce WMA files compatible with Windows-based digital audio distribution or internal media servers
- Strip the audio from a transport stream captured via a TV tuner card and convert it to WMA for use in a Windows-centric media library that indexes WMA files
- Prepare audio extracted from a broadcast TS file in WMA format for use with Microsoft DRM workflows, since WMA is the native format supported by Windows Media DRM systems
- Convert TS audio to WMA as an intermediate step when working with older Windows-based video editing or audio production tools that accept WMA input but not raw TS or AAC streams
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, some quality loss is inevitable. TS files from broadcast sources often carry audio in AC-3 (Dolby Digital) or AAC, which are already lossy formats. Converting to WMA wmav2 introduces a second generation of lossy compression, which compounds any existing artifacts. At 128k bitrate, the result is generally acceptable for casual listening, but audiophiles archiving broadcast content should be aware that no lossless WMA output is possible with this conversion — WMA is inherently a lossy format.
All of them are dropped. WMA is a pure audio-only container and cannot carry video streams, subtitle tracks, or secondary audio tracks. The FFmpeg command used here targets the primary audio stream by default. If your TS file has multiple audio tracks (e.g., a main language and a secondary language), only the first audio stream will be included in the WMA output. If you need a specific audio track, you would need to modify the command with a stream selector like -map 0:a:1 to target the second audio track.
wmav2 is the superior and more widely adopted version of the Windows Media Audio codec. It offers better audio quality at equivalent bitrates compared to wmav1, and it is compatible with virtually all software and hardware that supports WMA playback. wmav1 is a much older codec from the late 1990s and exists mainly for compatibility with very early Windows Media Player versions. Unless you have a specific legacy device that only supports wmav1, wmav2 is always the correct choice.
Replace the value after -b:a in the command. For example, to convert at 192k bitrate, change the command to: ffmpeg -i input.ts -c:a wmav2 -b:a 192k output.wma. Higher bitrates like 256k or 320k will preserve more audio detail from the original TS broadcast stream but produce larger files. Lower bitrates like 64k or 96k reduce file size but will noticeably degrade quality, especially for music or complex broadcast audio.
Yes. On Linux or macOS, you can use a shell loop: for f in *.ts; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a wmav2 -b:a 128k "${f%.ts}.wma"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.ts) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a wmav2 -b:a 128k "%~nf.wma". This will process each TS file in the current directory and produce a corresponding WMA file with the same base filename. This is especially useful for batch-archiving a folder of DVR recordings.
Partially. WMA supports metadata tags such as title, artist, album, and year, and FFmpeg will attempt to map any metadata present in the TS file to the WMA container. However, broadcast TS files often carry metadata in MPEG-2 service information (SI) tables or DVB metadata structures that FFmpeg may not fully extract or translate into WMA tags. You may find that the output WMA file has incomplete or missing metadata compared to what a dedicated DVR application would display from the same TS file.
Technical Notes
The wmav2 codec used in this conversion is Microsoft's proprietary second-generation Windows Media Audio codec, which uses a transform-based compression scheme broadly similar in approach to AAC and Vorbis. When converting from a broadcast TS file, the input audio is most commonly AC-3 at 192k–384k (standard in North American ATSC broadcast) or AAC (common in DVB and HLS-based streams). Both must be fully decoded before re-encoding into wmav2, making this a two-stage transcode with cumulative quality loss. The WMA container does not support multi-channel surround audio beyond stereo in the standard wmav2 profile — if your TS source contains 5.1 surround AC-3, FFmpeg will automatically downmix it to stereo for the WMA output. WMA also lacks support for gapless playback metadata, subtitles, chapters, and multiple streams. File size for WMA output is directly determined by the -b:a bitrate setting and audio duration, with no variable bitrate (VBR) option available through this tool's standard command. For files exceeding 1GB — such as long broadcast recordings — the displayed FFmpeg command can be run locally on your desktop without file size restrictions.