Convert WTV to WAV — Free Online Tool
Convert WTV recorded TV files from Windows Media Center to WAV audio, extracting the broadcast audio track as uncompressed 16-bit PCM — ideal for archiving, editing, or analyzing audio from DVR recordings without any audio quality loss.
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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 are Windows Media Center DVR containers that typically hold H.264 or MJPEG video alongside AAC or MP3 audio tracks recorded from digital broadcast signals. During this conversion, FFmpeg discards the video stream entirely and decodes the compressed audio (usually AAC) from the WTV container, then re-encodes it as uncompressed PCM signed 16-bit little-endian audio (pcm_s16le) inside a WAV container. Because AAC is a lossy format, this is a lossy-to-lossless-container conversion — the audio undergoes one decode step from AAC, so no additional quality is lost beyond what was already lost during the original broadcast recording. The resulting WAV file is fully uncompressed and universally compatible with audio editors, broadcast tools, and archival workflows.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg binary — the engine running entirely in your browser via WebAssembly (FFmpeg.wasm) for this tool, or locally on your desktop when running the command yourself. |
-i input.wtv
|
Specifies the input file in WTV format — the Windows Media Center recorded TV container, which holds both video and audio streams along with broadcast metadata. |
-c:a pcm_s16le
|
Sets the audio codec to PCM signed 16-bit little-endian, the standard uncompressed audio format for WAV files. This decodes the lossy AAC (or AC-3) audio from the WTV file into raw, uncompressed PCM samples at the same sample rate and channel count as the source. |
output.wav
|
Defines the output file as a WAV container. FFmpeg infers from the .wav extension that this is a RIFF WAV file, and since WAV is audio-only, the video stream from the WTV input is automatically dropped — no explicit video discard flag is needed. |
Common Use Cases
- Extract the audio commentary or dialogue from a recorded TV interview or documentary to transcribe or caption it using audio editing software
- Pull the audio track from a Windows Media Center DVR recording of a live concert or musical performance to edit in a DAW like Audacity or Adobe Audition
- Archive the audio from a recorded broadcast news segment as an uncompressed WAV for long-term storage, avoiding further lossy re-encoding
- Prepare recorded TV audio for forensic or accessibility analysis, such as checking audio levels or generating waveforms, where PCM format is required
- Extract a radio program recorded via Windows Vista/7 Media Center as a WAV file to burn to CD or import into a podcast editing workflow
- Recover the audio from an old WTV recording on a system where Windows Media Center is no longer available, producing a widely compatible WAV file
Frequently Asked Questions
The WAV output will be uncompressed, but WTV recordings store audio in a lossy format — typically AAC captured from a digital broadcast signal. This means the conversion involves one decode step from AAC to PCM, which does not introduce additional quality loss, but the audio cannot recover quality lost during the original broadcast encoding. Think of it as losslessly preserving whatever audio quality the WTV file already contained.
The video stream is completely dropped — FFmpeg does not include it in the WAV output at all. WAV is a pure audio container with no support for video tracks, so only the first audio stream from the WTV file is decoded and written to the output. If your recording has multiple audio tracks (e.g., a secondary language track), only the default track is extracted unless you specify otherwise.
By default, FFmpeg selects the first audio stream. To choose a specific track, add '-map 0:a:1' to the command (replace '1' with the zero-indexed track number you want, so '0' for the first, '1' for the second, etc.). The full command would be: ffmpeg -i input.wtv -map 0:a:1 -c:a pcm_s16le output.wav. This is especially relevant for WTV files from bilingual broadcasts.
Significantly larger in terms of audio data alone. Uncompressed PCM at 16-bit stereo 48kHz (a common broadcast sample rate) produces approximately 11 MB per minute. A one-hour WTV recording would yield a WAV file of roughly 660 MB just for audio. The WTV's compressed AAC audio would have been far smaller, but the video track (which is discarded) often makes up the majority of the WTV file's size.
WAV has very limited metadata support compared to WTV, which can embed rich broadcast metadata including program title, channel, and recording timestamp. Standard PCM WAV files support only basic INFO chunk tags, and FFmpeg's WTV demuxer may not map all WTV metadata fields to WAV. For archival purposes, consider separately logging or storing the WTV metadata before conversion, as it is likely to be lost or partially discarded.
Yes — you can replace 'pcm_s16le' with 'pcm_s24le' for 24-bit or 'pcm_s32le' for 32-bit output by modifying the '-c:a' flag. For example: ffmpeg -i input.wtv -c:a pcm_s24le output.wav. However, since the source audio in WTV is AAC (a lossy codec typically encoded at broadcast quality), increasing the bit depth beyond 16-bit will not recover lost detail — it only increases file size. 16-bit is generally sufficient for content sourced from broadcast recordings.
Technical Notes
WTV files use the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) container extended by Microsoft for Windows Media Center, and FFmpeg's WTV demuxer handles the proprietary structure to extract streams. The audio codec in WTV recordings is almost always AAC (from ATSC digital broadcasts) or occasionally AC-3, depending on the broadcast source and tuner. This conversion command assumes AAC audio; if your WTV contains AC-3 audio, the same command still works as FFmpeg will decode it correctly to PCM. The output uses pcm_s16le (signed 16-bit little-endian PCM), which is the most universally compatible WAV variant and matches the CD-quality standard. WAV does not support multiple audio tracks in a single file, so multi-track WTV files require separate FFmpeg invocations with explicit '-map' flags for each track. Subtitles embedded in the WTV file (closed captions from the broadcast) are not extracted by this command and will be discarded. For files over 4 GB (very long recordings), WAV's theoretical 4 GB file size limit under the RIFF spec may be a concern, though many modern applications handle extended WAV (RF64) transparently.