Convert WTV to ALAC — Free Online Tool
Convert WTV recorded TV files from Windows Media Center to ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), extracting the audio track as a lossless .m4a file. This is ideal for archiving broadcast recordings with perfect audio fidelity, since ALAC preserves every bit of the source audio without any quality degradation.
to
FFmpeg Command
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Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
WTV files contain multiplexed video and audio streams — typically H.264 video with AAC or MP3 audio, recorded from digital broadcast signals by Windows Media Center. During this conversion, FFmpeg reads the WTV container, discards the video stream entirely, and re-encodes the audio into Apple Lossless (ALAC) format stored in an MPEG-4 (.m4a) container. Because WTV audio is typically lossy (AAC or MP3), the ALAC output is a lossless representation of that already-lossy source — meaning no further quality is lost in the transcoding step itself, though the audio will not become higher quality than the original broadcast recording. The result is a compact, Apple-compatible lossless audio file.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg tool, which handles reading the WTV container, demultiplexing its streams, and encoding the output ALAC file. This conversion runs entirely via FFmpeg.wasm in your browser, but the same command works identically in a local FFmpeg installation. |
-i input.wtv
|
Specifies the input file — a WTV broadcast recording from Windows Media Center. FFmpeg reads the WTV container and identifies the available video, audio, and metadata streams inside it. |
-c:a alac
|
Instructs FFmpeg to encode the audio stream using Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC). This extracts the audio from the WTV recording and re-encodes it losslessly into ALAC, dropping the video stream since the output format is audio-only. |
-c:a alac
|
A second instance of the audio codec flag, which is redundant in this command but harmless — FFmpeg applies the last-specified value for each parameter. A single '-c:a alac' is sufficient to produce the correct output. |
output.m4a
|
Defines the output file as an .m4a file, which is an MPEG-4 audio container — the standard container used to store ALAC audio on Apple platforms. The .m4a extension signals to iTunes, Apple Music, and iOS devices that this is an audio-only file encoded with ALAC. |
Common Use Cases
- Archiving the audio from a recorded documentary or music performance broadcast, preserving it at the highest fidelity possible from the WTV source without additional transcoding loss.
- Extracting a recorded radio broadcast or spoken-word program from a Windows Media Center WTV file to import into iTunes or Apple Music as a lossless track.
- Pulling the audio commentary or soundtrack from a recorded sports broadcast for use in video editing projects on macOS, where ALAC is natively supported.
- Converting a library of old Windows Media Center TV recordings to ALAC so they can be played on iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV without needing to keep Windows Media Center installed.
- Preserving the audio of a recorded concert or live musical performance from a WTV DVR file in a lossless container for long-term archival storage.
- Stripping the video from large WTV broadcast recordings to create smaller audio-only ALAC files for use in a music or podcast library on Apple devices.
Frequently Asked Questions
No — ALAC is a lossless codec, but it cannot recover quality that was lost when the original broadcast was recorded. WTV files from Windows Media Center typically store audio as AAC or MP3, both of which are lossy formats. The ALAC output will be a lossless copy of that lossy audio, meaning no further quality is lost in this conversion, but the result will not be higher fidelity than the original broadcast recording.
ALAC is a lossless codec, so it does not discard audio data the way AAC or MP3 does. Even though ALAC uses compression, it must preserve every sample exactly, which typically results in larger file sizes than lossy formats at equivalent quality. If your WTV file used a low-bitrate AAC stream, the ALAC output may be significantly larger because it represents the same audio without any lossy compression applied on top.
WTV files embed broadcast metadata such as show title, channel, and air date in their container. FFmpeg can read some of this metadata, but not all WTV-specific broadcast fields map cleanly to ALAC/M4A tags. Common tags like title may transfer, but EPG-specific data like episode descriptions or channel information is likely to be lost. You may need to manually tag the output .m4a file using a tool like MusicBrainz Picard or iTunes after conversion.
Yes, you can batch convert using a shell loop. On Linux or macOS, use: for f in *.wtv; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a alac "${f%.wtv}.m4a"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.wtv) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a alac "%~nf.m4a". This runs the same conversion command on every WTV file in the current directory and outputs a corresponding .m4a file for each.
ALAC has broader compatibility than many people assume. While it was developed by Apple, the codec was open-sourced in 2011, and it is now supported by VLC, foobar2000, ffmpeg-based players, Android (via certain apps), and many modern smart TVs. However, it is not natively supported by Windows Media Player or older Android music apps, so if cross-platform compatibility is a priority, FLAC may be a better choice for lossless audio archiving.
The flag '-c:a alac' tells FFmpeg to encode the audio stream using the Apple Lossless Audio Codec. In the resolved command shown here, it appears twice due to how the tool constructs the command for this format pair — the second instance is functionally redundant but harmless, as FFmpeg will simply apply the last specified audio codec setting. In practice, a single '-c:a alac' is all that is needed to produce a valid ALAC .m4a output file.
Technical Notes
WTV (Windows Television) is a container developed by Microsoft for Windows Vista Media Center and later versions, designed to store digital broadcast recordings along with EPG metadata, closed captions, and sometimes multiple audio tracks (e.g., secondary language tracks). When converting to ALAC, only the primary audio stream is extracted by default — secondary audio tracks and subtitles are not preserved in the ALAC/M4A output, since the M4A container as used by ALAC does not support multiple independent audio tracks or subtitle streams. ALAC itself has no configurable bitrate or quality parameter; it is purely lossless, so the output quality is determined entirely by the source audio. The .m4a container does support chapter markers, which could be added manually post-conversion if needed. One important limitation: some WTV files recorded from encrypted cable or satellite channels may have DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection applied by Windows Media Center, which would prevent FFmpeg from reading the file at all — only recordings from unencrypted over-the-air digital broadcasts are reliably accessible.