What is a WMV file?
WMV is an old Microsoft video file from the days of slow connections. Outside Windows Media Player it is awkward, and copy-protected ones will not convert at all, so most people move them to MP4. You can turn a WMV into other formats here, though nothing can be saved back as WMV.
Specification
| Full name | Windows Media Video |
|---|---|
| Extensions | .wmv |
| Media type | video/x-ms-wmv |
| Compression | Lossy |
| Transparency | — |
| Animation | — |
| Multiple pages | — |
| Colour depth | — |
| Size limits | — |
| Introduced | 1999 |
| Developed by | Microsoft |
| Standard | Proprietary |
| Browser support | Not displayed by browsers |
What WMV is used for
- Legacy Windows Media files and old corporate training video
- Archived PowerPoint recordings and screencasts
- Content produced by older Windows capture tooling
Strengths and limitations
What WMV does well
- Reasonable quality on a very slow connection, for its era
- Native playback on older Windows installations
Where WMV falls short
- Effectively obsolete outside Windows
- DRM-protected files may not be convertible at all
- Quality for the file size is far behind anything modern
Convert WMV to
Every target this format can be written out as, each on its own page.
Tools that accept WMV
Questions about WMV
What is a .wmv file?
WMV is an old Microsoft video file from the days of slow connections. The extension .wmv identifies it, and its media type is video/x-ms-wmv.
How do I open a WMV file?
Browsers do not display WMV natively, so you either need software that understands it or you convert it to something more common first. Converting is usually the faster route when you only need to look at the contents once.
Is WMV lossy or lossless?
Lossy. That means detail is discarded during encoding and each re-save compounds the loss, so keep an untouched master where quality matters.
What is WMV good for?
Reasonable quality on a very slow connection, for its era. Native playback on older Windows installations. In practice that makes it a good fit for legacy Windows Media files and old corporate training video, and Archived PowerPoint recordings and screencasts.
What are the drawbacks of WMV?
Effectively obsolete outside Windows. DRM-protected files may not be convertible at all. Quality for the file size is far behind anything modern.