Convert WTV to M2TS — Free Online Tool
Convert WTV recorded TV files from Windows Media Center into M2TS (BDAV MPEG-2 Transport Stream) format, re-encoding the video with H.264 and audio with AAC to produce a Blu-ray-compatible container suitable for archiving, playback on BD players, or editing in professional workflows. This is especially useful for preserving broadcast DVR recordings in a high-definition, standards-compliant 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 from Windows Media Center typically contain MPEG-2 or VC-1 encoded video alongside AC-3 or AAC audio, wrapped in a proprietary Microsoft container with embedded DVR metadata. During this conversion, FFmpeg re-encodes the video stream to H.264 using libx264 (CRF 23 by default) and transcodes the audio to AAC at 128k bitrate, then muxes both into an M2TS MPEG-2 Transport Stream container. This is a full transcode — not a remux — because WTV's native codecs (particularly VC-1 and MPEG-2 video) are not typically valid in M2TS/BDAV without re-encoding to an accepted codec like H.264 or H.265. The M2TS container uses fixed 192-byte TS packets (the standard 188-byte packet plus a 4-byte timestamp), which is required for Blu-ray compliance. Embedded subtitle tracks from the WTV file may be carried over if FFmpeg detects them.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg program, the open-source multimedia processing engine that handles demuxing the WTV container, decoding its video and audio streams, re-encoding them, and muxing the result into M2TS. |
-i input.wtv
|
Specifies the input file — a WTV recorded TV file from Windows Media Center. FFmpeg will parse the proprietary ASF-based WTV container to extract the video (typically MPEG-2 or VC-1) and audio (typically AC-3 or MPEG audio) streams. |
-c:v libx264
|
Re-encodes the video stream using the libx264 H.264 encoder, which is required here because WTV's native video codecs (MPEG-2, VC-1) need to be transcoded to a codec valid within the M2TS/BDAV container specification. |
-c:a aac
|
Transcodes the audio stream to AAC using FFmpeg's native AAC encoder, converting from whatever audio codec was used in the WTV file (commonly AC-3 or MPEG Layer II) into a format natively supported by the M2TS container and compatible with Blu-ray and AVCHD players. |
-crf 23
|
Sets the Constant Rate Factor for the H.264 encode at 23, which is libx264's default and provides a good balance of visual quality and file size for typical broadcast TV content. Lower values (e.g., 18) increase quality and file size; higher values (e.g., 28) reduce both. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the AAC audio output bitrate to 128 kilobits per second, which is generally sufficient for stereo broadcast TV audio. If the original WTV file contained Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, consider increasing this to 192k or 256k to better preserve the audio detail after transcoding. |
output.m2ts
|
Specifies the output filename with the .m2ts extension, which signals FFmpeg to mux the encoded H.264 video and AAC audio into an MPEG-2 Transport Stream container formatted for BDAV (Blu-ray Disc Audio-Video) compatibility, using 192-byte TS packets. |
Common Use Cases
- Archiving Windows Media Center DVR recordings of broadcast TV shows into a Blu-ray-compatible format for long-term storage or disc authoring
- Preparing recorded television content for playback on Blu-ray players or AVCHD-compatible devices that do not recognize WTV files
- Converting old WTV recordings from a decommissioned Windows Vista or Windows 7 Media Center PC into a format supported by modern video editing software like DaVinci Resolve or Adobe Premiere
- Ingesting broadcast TV recordings into a media server (such as Jellyfin or Plex) that handles M2TS more reliably than WTV for hardware transcoding
- Transferring recorded sports events or documentaries from WTV into M2TS for use in a professional AVCHD authoring pipeline
- Batch-archiving a large library of WTV recordings before migrating away from Windows Media Center to preserve them in an open, standards-based container
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, some quality loss occurs because this conversion involves a full re-encode of the video stream, not a lossless remux. WTV files often contain MPEG-2 or VC-1 video, which must be transcoded to H.264 for M2TS compatibility. Using the default CRF 23 setting produces visually good results for most broadcast content, but lowering the CRF value (e.g., to 18) will increase quality at the cost of a larger file size. Audio is also transcoded from the original codec (often AC-3 or MPEG audio) to AAC, which is a generation of re-encoding.
WTV files store rich DVR metadata — including show title, episode name, broadcast time, and channel information — in a proprietary Microsoft format that is not part of the standard M2TS/BDAV specification. FFmpeg does not map these WTV-specific metadata fields to the M2TS container during conversion, so most of that broadcast metadata will be lost. If preserving this information is important, consider extracting it separately using a tool like MCEBuddy before converting.
The output M2TS file uses H.264 video and AAC audio in a BDAV transport stream container, which aligns with Blu-ray disc standards. However, standalone Blu-ray players typically require content to be authored onto a disc with proper BDMV folder structure (including index.bdmv and MovieObject.bdmv files) rather than playing a raw M2TS file directly from USB. Some players do support direct M2TS playback from USB drives, but compatibility varies by manufacturer and model.
By default, the FFmpeg command targets the first detected audio stream and transcodes it to AAC. WTV files can contain multiple audio tracks — for example, a secondary language track or a descriptive audio service — and these will not be automatically included in the output. To include all audio tracks, you can modify the command by adding '-map 0:a' before the output filename, which maps all audio streams from the input into the M2TS container.
Video quality is controlled by the '-crf' flag, which uses a scale where lower numbers produce higher quality and larger files. The default CRF of 23 is a good balance for broadcast TV content. For a near-transparent encode suitable for archiving, try '-crf 18'; for smaller files where some quality loss is acceptable, try '-crf 28'. You can also change the audio bitrate by modifying '-b:a 128k' — for example, using '-b:a 192k' for better audio fidelity from original AC-3 surround tracks.
Yes. On Windows, you can run a batch loop in Command Prompt: 'for %f in (*.wtv) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "%~nf.m2ts"'. On Linux or macOS, use: 'for f in *.wtv; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "${f%.wtv}.m2ts"; done'. Note that the browser-based tool processes one file at a time; the FFmpeg command shown is particularly valuable for batch-converting large DVR libraries locally.
Technical Notes
WTV (Windows Television) is a container built on the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) and uses a proprietary structure tied to Windows Media Center's DVR infrastructure. It commonly encodes video as MPEG-2 or VC-1 and audio as Dolby Digital AC-3 or MPEG Layer II — neither of which is a compliant codec for the BDAV M2TS profile without transcoding. The M2TS container uses MPEG-2 Transport Stream multiplexing with 192-byte packets (4-byte Blu-ray timestamp + 188-byte standard TS packet), and the BDAV standard formally supports H.264 (AVC), H.265 (HEVC), and VC-1 for video, and LPCM, Dolby Digital, DTS, and AAC for audio. This tool uses libx264 and AAC, which are broadly compatible subsets of those specifications. One known limitation is that closed caption or teletext subtitle data embedded in WTV's DVR stream may not be reliably extracted or remapped by FFmpeg into M2TS subtitle streams, depending on the original broadcast encoding. Additionally, WTV files larger than 1GB — common for HD recordings of films or multi-hour events — should be processed using the displayed FFmpeg command locally rather than in the browser, as the WebAssembly runtime has memory constraints that make very large file processing impractical.