Convert WTV to MPG — Free Online Tool
Convert WTV recordings from Windows Media Center into MPG files encoded with MPEG-2 video and MP2 audio — the standard codecs used for DVD and broadcast video. This makes your saved TV recordings compatible with legacy DVD authoring software, standalone DVD players, and broadcast-oriented editing pipelines that expect MPEG-2 program streams.
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FFmpeg Command
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Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
WTV files store recorded broadcast television using H.264 (libx264) video and AAC audio, wrapped in Microsoft's proprietary Windows Television container. During conversion, both streams must be fully re-encoded: the H.264 video is decoded and re-encoded as MPEG-2 video, and the AAC audio is decoded and re-encoded as MP2 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II). The output is an MPEG program stream (.mpg) — a muxed container format defined by the MPEG-2 standard. Because WTV supports multiple audio tracks, subtitles, and broadcast metadata, be aware that only the primary audio track is carried into the output MPG, and subtitle and metadata information embedded by Windows Media Center will be discarded, as the MPG container does not support those features.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg application, the open-source multimedia processing engine that handles reading the WTV container, decoding H.264 and AAC streams, re-encoding to MPEG-2 and MP2, and writing the output MPG program stream. |
-i input.wtv
|
Specifies the input file in Windows Television format. FFmpeg detects the WTV container and demuxes the H.264 video and AAC audio streams (along with any broadcast metadata) for processing. |
-c:v mpeg2video
|
Instructs FFmpeg to re-encode the video stream using the MPEG-2 video codec, replacing the H.264 video found in the WTV source. MPEG-2 is required for the MPG program stream container and is the standard codec for DVD and broadcast video distribution. |
-c:a mp2
|
Re-encodes the audio from the WTV file's AAC stream into MP2 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II), the audio codec standard for MPEG-2 program streams and DVD video. This replaces the modern AAC audio with the older MP2 format expected by DVD players and broadcast systems. |
-q:v 2
|
Sets the MPEG-2 video quality using a quantization scale where 1 is highest quality and 31 is lowest. A value of 2 produces near-maximum quality output, preserving as much visual detail from the original broadcast recording as the MPEG-2 codec allows, at the cost of a larger file size. |
-b:a 192k
|
Sets the MP2 audio bitrate to 192 kilobits per second, the standard bitrate for DVD-quality stereo audio. This is appropriate for broadcast TV recordings where the source AAC audio is typically stereo speech and music. |
output.mpg
|
Defines the output filename with the .mpg extension, which tells FFmpeg to write an MPEG-2 program stream container. This format is directly compatible with DVD authoring tools, legacy media players, and broadcast ingest systems that expect MPEG-2 content. |
Common Use Cases
- Import a Windows Media Center TV recording into DVD authoring software like DVD Architect or DVD Flick, which require MPEG-2/MP2 program streams as input
- Play a WTV recording on a standalone DVD player or media appliance that understands MPEG-2 but cannot parse Microsoft's proprietary WTV container
- Archive broadcast TV recordings in a standardized, vendor-neutral MPEG-2 format that will remain accessible without Windows Media Center software
- Prepare a recorded broadcast segment for ingest into a broadcast editing or playout system that expects MPEG-2 program stream files
- Strip out the Windows-specific container and metadata from a WTV recording to share the content with editors using non-Microsoft tools on Linux or macOS
- Convert a WTV recording for use with older video editing software that predates H.264 support but handles MPEG-2 natively
Frequently Asked Questions
No. The MPG container format based on MPEG-2 program streams does not support subtitle tracks or closed caption data in the way WTV does. Windows Media Center embeds closed caption and subtitle information inside the WTV wrapper, and FFmpeg will discard this data during the conversion because there is no compatible subtitle stream type in the output MPG format. If preserving closed captions is important, consider an intermediate format like MKV or MP4 before your final workflow step.
No. The MPEG-2 program stream format as typically produced by FFmpeg in this configuration carries only a single audio track, and FFmpeg will select the default (usually first) audio track from your WTV file. WTV natively supports multiple audio tracks, which is a common feature for broadcast recordings with SAP or bilingual audio. If you need a specific secondary audio track, you can add '-map 0:a:1' (or the appropriate index) to the FFmpeg command before the output filename to select it explicitly.
MPEG-2 video encoded at the default quality setting (-q:v 2) is generally less efficient than the H.264 video stored inside a WTV file, meaning your MPG output will typically be noticeably larger than the source WTV file for equivalent visual quality. MPEG-2 is an older codec and requires significantly more data to represent the same image detail that H.264 achieves at lower bitrates. For a one-hour HD TV recording, expect the MPG file to be one and a half to three times larger than the original WTV depending on the content.
No. WTV files store rich DVR metadata including program title, episode information, channel, and broadcast time, but the MPEG-2 program stream format does not have a standardized metadata container for this information. FFmpeg will drop this metadata during conversion. If you need to retain this information, note it separately before converting, or consider embedding it manually into an MP4 or MKV output format instead, which support metadata fields.
The -q:v flag controls MPEG-2 video quality using a scale from 1 (best quality, largest file) to 31 (worst quality, smallest file). The default value of 2 produces near-maximum quality output suitable for DVD authoring. If you want to reduce file size at the cost of some quality, try values like 4 or 6. Unlike the CRF scale used for H.264, lower numbers always mean better quality in MPEG-2's quantization scale, so -q:v 1 is the highest quality the codec can produce.
Yes. On Windows, you can use a batch file loop: 'for %f in (*.wtv) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v mpeg2video -c:a mp2 -q:v 2 -b:a 192k "%~nf.mpg"'. On Linux or macOS, use: 'for f in *.wtv; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v mpeg2video -c:a mp2 -q:v 2 -b:a 192k "${f%.wtv}.mpg"; done'. Each WTV file will be fully re-encoded, so batch processing a folder of long TV recordings can be time-consuming depending on your CPU.
Technical Notes
WTV is a Microsoft-proprietary container introduced in Windows Vista Media Center, and its video stream is almost always H.264 with AAC audio — both modern, efficient codecs. Converting to MPG requires a full transcode of both streams into the much older MPEG-2 ecosystem: MPEG-2 video (mpeg2video) and MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2). This is a lossy-to-lossy conversion, meaning there is a generation of quality loss regardless of the quality settings used. The MPEG-2 program stream (.mpg) output is compatible with DVD authoring tools, legacy broadcast equipment, and standalone players that predate H.264 support. One important constraint is that MPG program streams do not support multiple audio tracks, subtitles, chapters, or the rich DVR metadata that WTV stores — all of these are silently dropped during conversion. The default audio bitrate of 192k for MP2 is standard for DVD audio and provides good quality for speech and stereo broadcast content. If your WTV source is interlaced broadcast video (common for over-the-air recordings), the MPEG-2 encoder will handle interlaced content correctly by default, which is actually an advantage of MPEG-2 over some other codecs — it has native interlaced encoding modes suited for broadcast material.