MyMediaTools

Convert TS to WTV — Free Online Tool

Convert MPEG-2 Transport Stream (.ts) files to Windows Television (.wtv) format for playback and archiving in Windows Media Center. This tool re-encodes video using H.264 (libx264) and audio using AAC, bridging broadcast stream recordings into the DVR-friendly WTV container.

FFmpeg Command

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How It Works

TS files are commonly produced by digital broadcast tuners and live streaming pipelines, often carrying H.264, H.265, or even MPEG-2 video alongside AC3, AAC, or MP3 audio — plus multiple audio tracks and subtitle streams. WTV is a more restrictive container: it supports only H.264 or MJPEG for video and AAC or MP3 for audio. Because of this, the conversion always involves a full re-encode of the video stream using libx264 and the audio using AAC, regardless of what codecs were used in the source TS file. This means processing takes longer than a simple remux — the CPU must decode every frame and re-encode it. Subtitle tracks can be carried over, and multiple audio tracks are supported in WTV, but chapters are not preserved since neither format supports them in the same way. The CRF 23 default produces a good balance of quality and file size suitable for DVR-style playback.

What Each Flag Does

Flag What it does
ffmpeg Invokes the FFmpeg binary — the open-source multimedia processing engine that powers this conversion both in the browser (via FFmpeg.wasm) and on the desktop command line.
-i input.ts Specifies the input file as an MPEG-2 Transport Stream. FFmpeg will demux the TS container, detecting all video, audio, and subtitle streams inside the 188-byte packet structure.
-c:v libx264 Re-encodes the video stream using the H.264 codec via libx264, which is one of only two video codecs (alongside MJPEG) that the WTV container supports. This is always a full re-encode, not a stream copy.
-c:a aac Transcodes the audio stream to AAC, the default and most compatible audio codec for WTV. This is necessary because TS files often carry AC3, FLAC, or Opus audio that WTV cannot store.
-crf 23 Sets the Constant Rate Factor for H.264 encoding to 23, the standard default. This controls perceptual quality for the re-encoded video — lower values preserve more detail from the original broadcast stream 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 appropriate for speech and stereo broadcast audio. Increase to 192k or 256k if the source TS carried high-quality multichannel audio you want to preserve more faithfully.
output.wtv Defines the output filename with the .wtv extension, signaling FFmpeg to wrap the encoded H.264 video and AAC audio into the Windows Television container format recognized by Windows Media Center.

Common Use Cases

  • Importing a broadcast recording captured by a USB TV tuner into Windows Media Center, which requires the WTV format for full DVR playback features including metadata display and resume.
  • Archiving live-streamed content saved as TS files from tools like OBS or ffmpeg stream captures into a Windows Media Center library for organized browsing.
  • Converting HLS-compatible TS segments reassembled into a single file into WTV for long-term storage on a Windows Home Server running Media Center Extender.
  • Migrating a library of broadcast TV recordings stored as raw TS files from a Linux-based PVR (like TVHeadend) into a Windows Media Center environment.
  • Re-encoding a TS file that contains AC3 or FLAC audio (unsupported by WTV) into a WTV file with compatible AAC audio for seamless playback on Windows.
  • Preparing a transport stream file recorded from satellite or cable capture hardware for playback on Windows tablets or HTPCs running Windows Media Center.

Frequently Asked Questions

Subtitle tracks are supported in both TS and WTV, so they can be carried through the conversion. Multiple audio tracks are also preserved in the WTV container. However, audio codecs like AC3, FLAC, libopus, and libvpx-vp9 that are common in TS files are not supported by WTV, so all audio tracks will be re-encoded to AAC. You may lose secondary audio language tracks if the tool only maps the default stream — running the FFmpeg command locally with explicit '-map' flags gives you full control.
Unlike converting between containers that share the same codec (such as MKV to MP4 with H.264 video, which can be remuxed nearly instantly), TS-to-WTV always requires a full re-encode. The video must be decoded from its source codec and re-encoded to H.264, and the audio must be transcoded to AAC. This is computationally intensive and scales with the length and resolution of the source file.
WTV files converted from TS recordings will play in Windows Media Center, but DVR metadata such as program title, episode description, and channel information is typically embedded by the original recording software and may not be present in a TS file captured from a tuner or stream. Windows Media Center reads WTV metadata from embedded XML-style attributes written during recording — these are not automatically generated during a conversion from TS. You can add metadata manually using tools like MCEBuddy after conversion.
The '-crf' flag controls video quality in H.264 encoding — lower values mean higher quality and larger files, higher values mean more compression and smaller files. The default CRF of 23 is a standard balance. For archival-quality output closer to the original broadcast, try '-crf 18'. For a smaller file where some quality loss is acceptable, use '-crf 28'. The full adjusted command would look like: ffmpeg -i input.ts -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 18 -b:a 128k output.wtv
Yes. On Windows, you can use a simple batch script to loop over all TS files in a folder: 'for %f in (*.ts) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "%~nf.wtv"'. On Linux or macOS, use: 'for f in *.ts; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "${f%.ts}.wtv"; done'. This is especially useful for converting large PVR libraries since the browser tool is best suited for single files up to 1GB.
WTV does not support H.265 (HEVC) or VP9 video codecs — only H.264 and MJPEG are valid video codecs in WTV. If your TS file contains H.265 video (common in modern broadcast and streaming captures), it will be fully decoded and re-encoded to H.264 during conversion. This means a 4K or high-bitrate H.265 source will be transcoded, which is processing-intensive and may result in a larger output file if the original H.265 was highly compressed.

Technical Notes

TS (MPEG-2 Transport Stream) is a robust container designed for lossy transmission environments, using fixed-size 188-byte packets with error correction — characteristics that make it ideal for broadcast and streaming but unnecessary for local DVR storage. WTV was designed specifically for Windows Vista and Windows 7 Media Center as a DVR recording format, and its codec support is intentionally narrow: libx264 and MJPEG for video, AAC and MP3 for audio. This means a TS file carrying HEVC, VP9, AC3, FLAC, or Opus streams must be fully re-encoded, with no option to copy streams directly. The CRF-based encoding (default CRF 23) ensures consistent visual quality rather than a fixed bitrate, which is appropriate for varied broadcast content. One notable limitation: WTV does not support chapters, so any chapter markers in the TS file are discarded. The WTV format also embeds metadata in a proprietary Microsoft format that standard FFmpeg conversion does not populate — Windows Media Center may display the file without a title or episode information unless metadata is added post-conversion via a tool like MCEBuddy or directly via Windows Media Center's manual recording editor.

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