MyMediaTools

Convert WTV to AAC — Free Online Tool

Extract audio from Windows Media Center TV recordings (.wtv) and save it as AAC — stripping away the video stream and re-encoding the broadcast audio to a widely compatible .aac file. Ideal for pulling commentary, dialog, or soundtracks from DVR recordings captured by Windows Vista or Windows 7 Media Center.

FFmpeg Command

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Estimated output:

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How It Works

WTV files are Windows Media Center DVR containers that typically bundle an H.264 or MPEG-2 video stream alongside AC-3 or AAC broadcast audio, plus metadata like show title and channel information. During this conversion, FFmpeg reads the WTV container and discards the video stream entirely — no video encoding takes place. The audio track is re-encoded using the native FFmpeg AAC encoder at 128 kbps, producing a standalone .aac file. Because WTV broadcast audio is commonly AC-3 (Dolby Digital) sourced from a digital TV tuner, a full decode-and-re-encode cycle happens: the AC-3 audio is decoded to raw PCM, then compressed again into AAC. If the source audio happens to already be AAC, it is still re-encoded to ensure a clean, self-contained output file rather than a stream copy with WTV-specific framing artifacts.

What Each Flag Does

Flag What it does
ffmpeg Invokes the FFmpeg program, which handles all reading, decoding, encoding, and writing. In the browser-based version of this tool, FFmpeg runs entirely via WebAssembly (FFmpeg.wasm) — no server is involved.
-i input.wtv Specifies the input file — a Windows Media Center TV recording in the WTV container. FFmpeg uses its WTV demuxer to unpack the ASF-based container and expose the video, audio, and metadata streams inside.
-c:a aac Sets the audio codec to FFmpeg's built-in AAC encoder, which produces MPEG-4 AAC-LC output. This re-encodes the broadcast audio from the WTV file — typically AC-3 — into AAC, which is natively supported by iOS, Android, browsers, and iTunes.
-b:a 128k Targets an audio bitrate of 128 kilobits per second for the AAC output. This is a standard quality level that balances file size and audio fidelity well for speech-heavy broadcast content; raise it to 192k or 256k for music recordings to reduce the perceptible impact of the second-generation lossy encoding.
output.aac Defines the output filename and format. The .aac extension tells FFmpeg to write a raw MPEG-4 AAC bitstream file — an audio-only container with no video, no subtitles, and no WTV broadcast metadata, suitable for playback on virtually any modern device or media player.

Common Use Cases

  • Extracting the audio from a recorded TV documentary or lecture captured with Windows Media Center to listen offline on a phone or tablet without carrying the large WTV video file
  • Pulling dialog or commentary from a recorded sports broadcast to create a podcast-style audio clip for sharing or archiving
  • Converting a library of old Windows Vista or Windows 7 Media Center recordings to AAC for playback in iTunes, Apple Music, or on iOS devices that cannot open WTV files
  • Archiving the audio track of a recorded TV concert or music performance in a compact, universally compatible format before deleting the multi-gigabyte WTV source
  • Stripping audio from a Windows Media Center recording to use as source material in a video editing or podcast production workflow that imports AAC natively
  • Extracting broadcast radio or audio-only channel recordings saved as WTV by Windows Media Center tuner cards

Frequently Asked Questions

There will be some quality loss because this is a lossy-to-lossy transcode. Broadcast TV audio captured in WTV files is typically AC-3 at 192–384 kbps or, less commonly, already AAC. Re-encoding that to AAC at 128 kbps introduces a second generation of lossy compression. For spoken-word content like news or documentaries, 128 kbps AAC is generally indistinguishable from the source. For music-heavy content like concerts, consider raising the bitrate to 192k or 256k using the quality option in the tool or by modifying the -b:a flag in the FFmpeg command.
WTV files support multiple audio tracks — for example, a SAP (Secondary Audio Program) alternate language track common in broadcast TV. The AAC format itself does not support multiple tracks in a single file; it is a single-stream audio container. FFmpeg will default to mapping the first audio track it finds in the WTV file. If you need a specific track, you can add -map 0:a:1 (for the second audio track) to the command before the output filename to select a different stream.
WTV files embed rich broadcast metadata including show title, episode description, channel name, and air date — which Windows Media Center uses to organize your recordings. The AAC container has very limited metadata support; FFmpeg may carry over basic tags like title if they map to standard ID3 or iTunes-style atoms, but channel, broadcast time, and episode description fields will be lost. If metadata preservation is critical, consider converting to a container like M4A or MP4 instead, which has fuller tagging support.
FFmpeg on Windows has native WTV demuxer support, so you can run the displayed command directly on your desktop without any intermediate conversion step. On macOS or Linux, WTV support also exists in standard FFmpeg builds, though some WTV files using proprietary Microsoft DRM cannot be decoded on non-Windows systems. The command shown on this page will work as-is in a local FFmpeg installation for non-DRM-protected recordings.
Replace the 128k value in the -b:a 128k flag with your desired bitrate. For example, use -b:a 192k for better quality or -b:a 256k for near-transparent quality suitable for music recordings. The full command would become: ffmpeg -i input.wtv -c:a aac -b:a 192k output.aac. Higher bitrates produce larger files but reduce the audible impact of the lossy-to-lossy transcode from the original WTV broadcast audio.
Yes. On Windows, you can use a for loop in Command Prompt: for %f in (*.wtv) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a aac -b:a 128k "%~nf.aac". On macOS or Linux, use: for f in *.wtv; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a aac -b:a 128k "${f%.wtv}.aac"; done. This processes every WTV file in the current folder and outputs a matching .aac file for each, which is especially useful if you have years of Windows Media Center recordings to archive.

Technical Notes

WTV is a Microsoft-proprietary container introduced with Windows Vista Media Center, built on the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) base — the same foundation as WMV/WMA — but extended with broadcast-specific metadata and multi-stream support. FFmpeg's WTV demuxer handles the most common codec combinations found in recorded-TV files: MPEG-2 Video or H.264 video, and AC-3, AAC, or MPEG Audio audio tracks, depending on whether the source was an analog or digital tuner and what the broadcast used. When extracting to AAC, the video stream is automatically dropped since no -map or video codec flag is specified — FFmpeg detects that the output container (.aac) is audio-only. One important limitation: WTV files recorded from CableCARD or premium channels may carry Microsoft DRM (PlayReady) encryption, which FFmpeg cannot bypass — the tool will report an error or produce silence for these files. Free over-the-air or clear QAM recordings are not encrypted and convert without issue. The output uses FFmpeg's built-in AAC encoder, which produces MPEG-4 AAC-LC — the most broadly compatible AAC profile, supported by every major platform including iOS, Android, browsers, and smart TVs.

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