Convert WTV to AIFF — Free Online Tool
Convert WTV recorded TV files to AIFF, extracting the broadcast audio as uncompressed PCM for archival or professional audio use. The audio stream is re-encoded to 16-bit big-endian PCM (pcm_s16be), producing a lossless AIFF file natively compatible with macOS and professional audio applications.
to
FFmpeg Command
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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
WTV (Windows Television) files are DVR recordings from Windows Media Center that typically contain H.264 or MJPEG video alongside AAC or MP3 audio, plus broadcast metadata. When converting to AIFF, FFmpeg discards the video stream entirely — AIFF is an audio-only container — and transcodes the audio track to uncompressed PCM signed 16-bit big-endian (pcm_s16be). If the source WTV file used AAC or MP3 audio, this step involves decoding the compressed audio and re-encoding it to uncompressed PCM, which means one generation of lossy decoding occurs before the lossless AIFF is written. The result is a full-fidelity AIFF file at the original sample rate and channel count of the broadcast recording.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg tool, which runs entirely in your browser via WebAssembly (FFmpeg.wasm) for this online tool, or on your local machine if running the command in a terminal. |
-i input.wtv
|
Specifies the input WTV file — a Windows Media Center DVR recording. FFmpeg uses its WTV/ASF demuxer to parse the container, identifying the video stream (typically H.264 or MJPEG) and audio stream (typically AAC or MP3). |
-c:a pcm_s16be
|
Sets the audio output codec to PCM signed 16-bit big-endian, which is the standard uncompressed audio encoding used inside AIFF files. This decodes the compressed broadcast audio from the WTV (AAC or MP3) into raw, uncompressed samples compatible with the AIFF container and macOS audio tools. |
output.aiff
|
Defines the output filename and format. The .aiff extension tells FFmpeg to use the AIFF container muxer, which wraps the pcm_s16be audio stream in Apple's Audio Interchange File Format — a lossless, uncompressed format widely supported on macOS and in professional audio software. |
Common Use Cases
- Extract the audio commentary or dialogue from a recorded TV documentary to use in a macOS audio editing project in Logic Pro or GarageBand
- Archive the audio portion of a recorded broadcast concert or live performance as a lossless AIFF for long-term storage on a Mac
- Strip the audio from a recorded TV interview or lecture stored in WTV format for transcription or podcast production
- Convert a Windows Media Center DVR recording to AIFF so it can be imported into professional audio tools like Pro Tools or Audacity on macOS
- Extract broadcast audio from WTV recordings for forensic or legal review, where an uncompressed, unaltered audio format is preferred
- Move audio from old Windows Vista/7 Media Center recordings to a format usable on modern Apple Silicon Macs without format support for WTV
Frequently Asked Questions
Technically, yes — one decode cycle of lossy audio occurs. WTV files from Windows Media Center typically store audio as AAC or MP3, both of which are lossy compressed formats. Converting to AIFF decodes that compressed audio and writes it as uncompressed PCM, so the AIFF is lossless from that point forward, but it cannot recover quality lost during the original broadcast encoding. The result is the best possible representation of the audio that was stored in the WTV file.
No. AIFF does not support multiple audio tracks within a single file — it is a single-stream audio container. If your WTV recording contains multiple audio tracks (for example, a secondary language track or a descriptive audio service), FFmpeg will select the default or first audio track only. If you need a specific non-default audio track, you would need to modify the FFmpeg command to add -map 0:a:1 (or the appropriate track index) before the output filename.
WTV files store audio in compressed formats like AAC or MP3 that are typically 10–20 times smaller than uncompressed audio. AIFF using pcm_s16be stores every audio sample as raw, uncompressed data, so a one-hour TV recording with stereo audio at 44.1 kHz will produce an AIFF file of approximately 600–700 MB, regardless of how small the audio was inside the WTV. This is expected and is the nature of lossless uncompressed audio.
No. WTV files embed rich broadcast metadata including program title, episode information, channel, and air date using Microsoft's DVR-MS/WTV metadata schema. AIFF has very limited metadata support (basic fields via AIFF ANNO and NAME chunks), and FFmpeg does not map WTV broadcast metadata to AIFF tags during this conversion. If preserving metadata is important, you should note the WTV file's metadata separately before converting.
You can replace pcm_s16be with another AIFF-compatible PCM codec. For 24-bit audio use -c:a pcm_s24be, for 32-bit integer use -c:a pcm_s32be, and for 32-bit floating point use -c:a pcm_f32be. The full command would look like: ffmpeg -i input.wtv -c:a pcm_s24be output.aiff. Higher bit depths increase file size but do not recover quality lost in the original compressed WTV audio.
Yes, with a simple shell loop. On Linux or macOS: for f in *.wtv; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a pcm_s16be "${f%.wtv}.aiff"; done. On Windows Command Prompt: for %f in (*.wtv) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a pcm_s16be "%~nf.aiff". Each WTV file will be processed sequentially and output as a matching AIFF file in the same directory.
Technical Notes
WTV is a container format proprietary to Windows Media Center, built on the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) structure, and it is not natively supported on macOS or Linux without third-party software. FFmpeg's WTV demuxer handles the format well, including parsing the broadcast metadata and selecting the correct audio stream. The default output codec pcm_s16be (PCM signed 16-bit big-endian) matches the original AIFF specification developed by Apple and is the most universally accepted AIFF variant across macOS applications, DAWs, and audio editors. One known limitation is that WTV files with DTS or AC-3 audio (common in HD broadcast recordings) may require additional handling — FFmpeg will still decode these to PCM, but the conversion may produce a downmixed stereo output depending on channel configuration. Subtitles and closed captions embedded in the WTV file are dropped entirely, as AIFF has no subtitle support. The sample rate of the output AIFF will match whatever was stored in the WTV's audio stream, typically 44100 Hz or 48000 Hz for broadcast content.