Convert WTV to OGV — Free Online Converter

WTV (Windows TV) is the DVR recording container from Windows Media Center, housing broadcast TV with MPEG-2 or H.264 video, AC3 or AAC audio, and EPG metadata within its NTFS-like file structure. Windows Media Center recorded television from over-the-air antennas, cable boxes, and digital cable adapters from 2007 through its end-of-life in Windows 10. OGV (Ogg Video) is the open-source video container from the Xiph.org Foundation, combining Theora video with Vorbis audio in a patent-free, royalty-free package.

OGV was historically important as the first royalty-free video format supported by web browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Opera) via the HTML5 video element, before VP8/WebM became available. It remains relevant for open-source projects and platforms requiring patent-free video.

Converting WTV to OGV moves TV recordings into a completely open, royalty-free video format. This is specifically valuable for educational institutions, government organizations, open-source projects, and platforms like Wikipedia that mandate patent-free media. OGV ensures the content can be freely distributed without codec licensing concerns.

While WebM has largely succeeded OGV for general web video, OGV remains the established standard on platforms like Wikimedia Commons and in Linux-centric media workflows. Converting WTV TV recordings to OGV ensures they can be embedded in educational materials and open platforms without legal encumbrances.

FFmpeg demuxes the WTV container, deinterlaces if necessary (yadif), and re-encodes video to Theora and audio to Vorbis within the OGG container. Theora encoding uses the -q:v quality scale (0-10, where 7 provides good quality). Vorbis audio uses -q:a (0-10, where 5 is approximately 160 kbps). Resolution is typically preserved from the source, though downscaling to 720p or 480p reduces file size. EPG metadata is discarded as OGV has limited tag support.