Convert WTV to DVR — Free Online Tool
Convert WTV (Windows Media Center recorded TV) files to DVR format using H.264 video and AAC audio encoding entirely in your browser. This tool re-encodes your broadcast recordings into a DVR-compatible container, making captured television content accessible on digital video recorder systems that don't natively support Microsoft's WTV format.
to
FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
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Settings
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 files produced by Windows Vista/7 Media Center typically contain H.264 or MPEG-2 video alongside AC-3 or AAC audio, wrapped in a Microsoft-proprietary container with rich broadcast metadata (EPG data, channel info, recording timestamps). Because DVR is also a proprietary container with its own internal structure, this conversion cannot simply remux the streams — the video must be re-encoded to H.264 using libx264 and the audio re-encoded to AAC. This transcoding step ensures compatibility with the DVR container's codec expectations. One important side effect: WTV-specific metadata fields (show title, episode info, broadcast channel) and any embedded subtitles will not carry over, as the DVR format does not support these features. Multiple audio tracks in the source WTV file will also be reduced to a single AAC stream in the output.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg binary — the open-source multimedia processing engine that handles reading the WTV container, decoding its broadcast video and audio streams, re-encoding them, and writing the DVR output file. |
-i input.wtv
|
Specifies the input WTV file recorded by Windows Media Center. FFmpeg will parse Microsoft's ASF-based WTV container to extract the video, audio, and any subtitle or metadata streams present in the broadcast recording. |
-c:v libx264
|
Re-encodes the video stream using the libx264 H.264 encoder. This is necessary because the DVR container requires H.264 video — if the source WTV contained MPEG-2 video (common for older Media Center recordings), this step converts it to H.264 for DVR compatibility. |
-c:a aac
|
Re-encodes the audio stream to AAC using FFmpeg's native AAC encoder. WTV files from broadcast recordings often contain AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio, which the DVR container does not support, making this transcoding step essential for playback compatibility. |
-crf 23
|
Sets the Constant Rate Factor for the H.264 video encode to 23, which is the libx264 default and provides a perceptually balanced quality level suitable for broadcast TV content. Lower values (e.g., 18) increase quality and file size; higher values (e.g., 28) reduce file size with some visible quality loss. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the AAC audio bitrate to 128 kilobits per second, which is sufficient for standard broadcast stereo audio. If the original WTV recording captured 5.1 surround AC-3 audio, this will be downmixed to stereo AAC at this bitrate. |
output.dvr
|
Specifies the output filename with the .dvr extension. FFmpeg uses this extension to determine the target container format, writing the re-encoded H.264 video and AAC audio into a DVR-compatible file structure. |
Common Use Cases
- Transferring Windows Media Center TV recordings to a standalone DVR appliance or set-top box that reads DVR files but cannot parse WTV containers
- Archiving old Windows 7 Media Center recordings into a format compatible with surveillance or broadcast-capture DVR systems used in commercial or institutional settings
- Preparing recorded broadcast content from a PC-based tuner card for playback on hardware DVRs that only accept DVR-format media
- Converting a library of WTV recordings to DVR format before decommissioning a Windows Media Center PC, ensuring the content remains playable on available DVR hardware
- Re-encoding WTV files captured from cable or over-the-air broadcasts to a lower bitrate DVR file using CRF tuning to reduce storage footprint on DVR storage devices
Frequently Asked Questions
No — WTV files embed rich broadcast metadata including EPG-sourced show titles, episode descriptions, channel names, and recording timestamps in Microsoft's proprietary container structure. The DVR format does not support these metadata fields, so all of that information will be stripped during conversion. If preserving this metadata matters, consider exporting it manually (e.g., via Windows Media Center's metadata view) before converting.
No. WTV supports embedded subtitles (typically as CEA-608/708 closed captions captured from the broadcast stream), but the DVR format does not support subtitle tracks. The subtitle data will be discarded during conversion. If you need to preserve captions, you would need to extract them to a separate SRT or VTT file before converting.
The DVR format does not support multiple audio tracks, so only the first audio stream from the WTV file will be encoded into the output. If your recording contains a secondary language track or a secondary audio program (SAP) from the broadcast, those additional streams will be dropped. If you need a specific non-default track, you can modify the FFmpeg command using the '-map' flag to select the desired audio stream before converting.
The default command uses CRF 23 for video, which is H.264's standard perceptually balanced quality level and generally produces output indistinguishable from the source at typical broadcast resolutions (720p/1080i). However, because the video is being re-encoded rather than copied, there is always some generational quality loss. If your WTV source was already encoded in H.264 (common for ATSC digital broadcasts), re-encoding at CRF 18 or lower will minimize visible degradation. Audio is encoded to AAC at 128k, which is transparent for most broadcast content.
The '-crf 23' flag controls video quality — lower values mean higher quality and larger files (CRF 18 is visually near-lossless for most broadcast content), while higher values like 28 or 35 compress more aggressively at the cost of visible quality loss. To reduce file size while keeping acceptable quality, try '-crf 28'. To reduce audio bitrate, change '-b:a 128k' to '-b:a 96k' or '-b:a 64k'. For example: 'ffmpeg -i input.wtv -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 28 -b:a 96k output.dvr'.
Yes. On Linux or macOS, you can run: 'for f in *.wtv; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "${f%.wtv}.dvr"; done' in a terminal. On Windows Command Prompt, use: 'for %f in (*.wtv) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "%~nf.dvr"'. This is particularly useful for converting a large archive of Media Center recordings, and for files over 1GB the desktop FFmpeg command is recommended over the browser tool.
Technical Notes
WTV is a container format exclusive to Windows Vista and Windows 7 Media Center, built on top of Microsoft's Advanced Systems Format (ASF). It typically encodes video as MPEG-2 or H.264 and audio as AC-3 (Dolby Digital) or AAC, depending on the broadcast source and tuner hardware. The DVR container, by contrast, is a proprietary format tied to hardware DVR systems and expects H.264 video and AAC audio — hence why full re-encoding is required rather than a simple stream copy. A key limitation of this conversion is the loss of WTV's broadcast-specific features: closed captions, secondary audio programs, EPG metadata, and copy-protection flags (WTV files recorded from copy-protected channels may not be readable by FFmpeg at all without prior processing). The output DVR file will also lack chapter markers, as neither format supports them in this workflow. File size will vary significantly depending on the CRF value chosen and the resolution of the source recording — a one-hour 1080i broadcast recording at CRF 23 will typically produce a file between 2–5 GB. Users processing recordings longer than roughly 45 minutes should use the desktop FFmpeg command rather than the browser tool to avoid memory constraints.