Suvarna Garge (Editor)

WTV (Windows Recorded TV Show)

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Filename extension
  
.wtv

Extended from
  
DVR-MS

Developed by
  
Microsoft

Type of format
  
audio, video, container

WTV (Windows Recorded TV Show) is a proprietary video and audiovisual file container format, developed by Microsoft used for storing TV content recorded by Windows Media Center. It is used in Windows Vista starting with Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008, and all Windows Media Center editions of Windows 7. The WTV format is the successor to the earlier DVR-MS file format that was used in Windows XP Media Center Edition.

Multiple data streams (audio and video) are wrapped in a container with the file extension WTV. Video is encoded using the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 standard and audio using MPEG-1 Layer II or Dolby Digital AC-3 (ATSC A/52). The format extends these standards by including metadata about the content and digital rights management. Unlike the earlier DVR-MS format, WTV does not use ASF as the underlying container format.

Few software support parsing the WTV format such as:

  • FFMPEG - Read and create
  • HandBrake - Read
  • CCextractor - Read
  • Some software packages support editing and converting WTV into other formats including removing commercials:

  • MCEBuddy - Edit, convert and remove commercials
  • Known GUID of WTV

    16 bytes unique Global identifier. Represented as hex value as stored.

    References

    WTV (Windows Recorded TV Show) Wikipedia