As a Windows user, you are probably familiar with Windows media center, which is bundled with windows vista and windows 7, allows users to view and record live television, as well as organize and play music and videos. Ever tried to import Windows Media Center video, audio files into iTunes for playing and sharing with your Apple divides? In this page, I aim to share some tips and tricks for transferring Windows Media Center recorded TV shows to iTunes with you.
As you know TV shows recorded with windows media center are encoded in WTV (DVR-MS on windows vista) proprietary file format, which is incompatible with iTunes; therefore, if you want to add WTV/DVR-MS files to iTunes, there’s a bit of work to be done- These files needs to be converted to a iTunes friendly file format, .mov, .mp4, or .m4v. And as far as I know, MP4 is one of the formats that has native support from iTunes, for it’s a nice video compressing method to keep the file size reasonably small while not losing much quality.
The step by step guide to convert windows media center TV recording to iTunes
Free Download the App: Brorsoft Video Converter:
Overall, the program can be used as a utility to convert WTV, DVR-MS to more regular file format like mkv, avi, mp4, mov…with high quality and fast encoding speed. Besides Windows Media Center files, it can also help you encode/re-encode almost all 1080p/720p HD videos including AVI, MKV, VOB, MPG, MOV, TiVo, MTS etc. for playback on PC, Android based tablet/phone Galaxy S4, Nexus 7/10, Galaxy Tab 2/3, Kindle Fire HD, Nook HD; Windows 8 based tablet/phone Nokia Lumia 520/720/920, Microsoft Surface RT/Pro, or iOS devices Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, etc to meet your different needs.
Step 1: Launch the WTV/DVR-MS converter, then head to the folder where the windows media center recording are stored, by default, the destination is user/public/recorded TV. Add the files to the program.
Step 2: Since MP4 is a optimal format for iTunes, you can click the Format bar and select H.264 MP4 from “Common Video”. If you want to add the WTV/DVR-MS to iTunes for play on iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, etc., you can also directly select iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or iPod as the output format to get videos with optimized settings for your iDevices.
Step 3: The movie or TV recordings may needs a little trimming for viewing on iPod, iPad… The recorded TV shows and movies tend to have commercials, you can use the converter’s Trim feature to get rid of these.
Step 4: Convert windows media center recording to iTunes
After the conversion, get the output files by clicking the Open button. Now add the converted files to iTunes library. iTunes will now have no trouble to transfer the movies, TV shows to mobile devices, iPhone, iPad, iPod, or streaming to apple TV. Enjoy yourself!
Quick Learn: WTV file format and DVR-MS
WTV is the proprietary file format used for TV shows recorded with windows media center on windows 7 and windows 8, DVR-MS is the last gen proprietary file format, by right clicking a WTV file, the pop-up window contain a option to convert WTV to DVR-MS file format.