Convert WTV to MTS — Free Online Tool
Convert WTV files — Windows Media Center broadcast recordings — to MTS (AVCHD), the MPEG-2 Transport Stream format used by Sony and Panasonic camcorders, with H.264 video and AAC audio. This is useful for editing recorded TV content in professional video software that natively understands the AVCHD/MTS container structure.
to
FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
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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 files from Windows Media Center typically contain H.264 or MPEG-2 video alongside AAC or MP3 audio, wrapped in Microsoft's proprietary DVR container. Converting to MTS re-encodes the video stream using H.264 (libx264) with a CRF of 23 and transcodes the audio to AAC at 128k bitrate, then packages everything into an MPEG-2 Transport Stream (.mts). Because WTV's internal codec may differ from the MTS target (especially if the recording used MPEG-2 video), a full re-encode is performed rather than a simple remux. The resulting MTS file conforms to the AVCHD specification, making it recognizable to camcorder-aware editing tools. Subtitle tracks embedded in the WTV file may not carry over, as MTS subtitle support varies by player and editor.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg multimedia processing tool, which handles demuxing the WTV container, decoding its video and audio streams, re-encoding them, and muxing the result into an MTS file. |
-i input.wtv
|
Specifies the input file — a WTV broadcast recording created by Windows Media Center. FFmpeg uses its WTV demuxer to read the proprietary Microsoft container and extract the video, audio, and any metadata streams. |
-c:v libx264
|
Re-encodes the video stream using the H.264 codec via libx264. This is required because MTS/AVCHD expects H.264 video, and WTV recordings may contain MPEG-2 or other codecs that are incompatible with a direct stream copy into the MTS container. |
-c:a aac
|
Transcodes the audio stream to AAC using FFmpeg's native AAC encoder. WTV recordings from broadcast sources often carry AC-3 audio, which must be transcoded since AAC is the standard audio codec for AVCHD/MTS files. |
-crf 23
|
Sets the Constant Rate Factor for the H.264 video encode to 23, the libx264 default. For typical broadcast TV content in WTV recordings this produces a good balance of visual quality and file size; lower values like 18 will better preserve fine detail in HD recordings at the cost of larger output files. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the AAC audio bitrate to 128 kilobits per second, which is adequate for stereo TV audio. If your WTV recording contains 5.1 surround audio from a broadcast, consider increasing this to 192k or 256k to better preserve the multichannel mix. |
output.mts
|
Defines the output filename with the .mts extension, which signals FFmpeg to use the MPEG-2 Transport Stream muxer in AVCHD-compatible mode — the standard container format for Sony and Panasonic camcorder recordings and AVCHD editing workflows. |
Common Use Cases
- Importing recorded TV content from Windows Media Center into Sony Vegas Pro or Premiere Pro, which have native AVCHD/MTS project workflows optimized for this container
- Archiving DVR recordings from a retired Windows Media Center PC in a format playable on Sony or Panasonic camcorder companion software and media centers
- Preparing broadcast recordings for editing on a timeline alongside footage shot on AVCHD camcorders, so all clips share the same container and codec
- Converting WTV recordings of sports or documentary content for playback on Blu-ray players and smart TVs that support AVCHD disc structures
- Stripping the proprietary WTV wrapper from recorded TV so the content can be processed by hardware transcoders and NAS media servers that support MPEG-TS but not WTV
- Re-packaging recorded TV episodes captured via Windows Media Center into MTS for use with video editing workflows on systems where WTV demuxing is unavailable
Frequently Asked Questions
No, most WTV-specific metadata will be lost. WTV files embed rich EPG-style metadata such as channel name, program description, and broadcast timestamps in Microsoft's proprietary container fields. The MTS/AVCHD container does not have standardized fields for this type of broadcast metadata, so FFmpeg cannot map them across during conversion. If preserving this information matters, consider logging it manually or extracting it with a WTV metadata tool before converting.
This conversion involves a full video re-encode using H.264 at CRF 23, so there is some generation loss compared to the original recording. CRF 23 is a widely accepted balance between file size and visual quality — for most TV content it produces results that are visually indistinguishable from the source at normal viewing distances. If your WTV recording was already H.264 internally, the re-encode introduces one additional compression generation. Lowering the CRF value (e.g., to 18) in the FFmpeg command will preserve more detail at the cost of a larger file.
Likely not. WTV files can carry CEA-608/708 closed captions embedded in the broadcast stream, but FFmpeg's WTV demuxer does not reliably extract these as discrete subtitle streams. Even if extracted, the MTS container's subtitle support is inconsistent across players and editing software. You should not rely on this conversion to preserve subtitles — if captions are critical, extract them separately using a dedicated WTV or DVR subtitle extraction tool before converting.
The exact command displayed on this page — `ffmpeg -i input.wtv -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k output.mts` — runs identically on your local machine if you have FFmpeg installed. Replace `input.wtv` with the full path to your file and `output.mts` with your desired output path. This is especially practical for long recordings from Windows Media Center, which frequently exceed 1GB for HD content.
Change the `-crf` value in the command to control quality. Lower CRF values produce higher quality and larger files — `-crf 18` is near-visually-lossless for most TV content, while `-crf 28` or higher reduces file size noticeably but introduces more compression artifacts. The valid range for libx264 is 0 (lossless) to 51 (lowest quality), with 23 being the default used by this tool. For broadcast recordings where fine detail in motion scenes matters, CRF 18–20 is a good target.
Yes. On Windows, you can use a simple batch script: `for %f in (*.wtv) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "%~nf.mts"`. On macOS or Linux, use: `for f in *.wtv; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "${f%.wtv}.mts"; done`. This processes each WTV file in the current directory and outputs a corresponding MTS file, preserving the base filename.
Technical Notes
WTV (Windows Television) is a container format exclusive to Windows Vista/7/10 Media Center, and its internal codec varies depending on the broadcast source: over-the-air HD recordings typically use MPEG-2 video, while CableCARD and some digital cable recordings may use H.264. Because the MTS/AVCHD specification requires H.264 video, this conversion always performs a full video re-encode via libx264 regardless of the source codec — there is no remux shortcut available for this format pair. Audio in WTV recordings is commonly AC-3 (Dolby Digital) from broadcast streams or AAC; both are transcoded to AAC at 128k for MTS output. The MTS container is based on MPEG-2 Transport Stream and is specifically associated with AVCHD camcorder recordings, so editing software like Sony Vegas, Cyberlink PowerDirector, and Final Cut Pro handle it well in AVCHD-mode projects. Notably, WTV supports multiple audio tracks (e.g., SAP/secondary audio programming from broadcast), but FFmpeg's WTV demuxer may not reliably expose all tracks; by default, only the primary audio stream is encoded into the MTS output. The MTS format does not support chapters, so any chapter markers are discarded. File sizes after conversion will vary significantly based on the length and resolution of the original recording and the chosen CRF value.