Convert WMV files to MP4 so Windows Media video plays on phones, Macs and the web instead of only on an old PC. Files from Movie Maker, screen recorders and early camcorders all work. Everything happens in your browser, so nothing is uploaded and no account is needed.
or click to select a file
🔒 Your files never leave your device - 100% private & secure
Drag a .wmv file onto the upload area or click Select Video. The file stays on your device.
Windows Media video is not something browsers can decode, so about 9 MB is downloaded the first time you convert one. It is cached afterwards.
MP4 is selected automatically. Click Convert, then download the MP4 when it finishes.
WMV is Microsoft's video format, stored in an ASF container and encoded with Windows Media Video or VC-1. For most of the 2000s it was what Windows Movie Maker exported, what Windows screen recorders produced and what a good number of camcorders wrote, so it is common in anything archived from a PC of that period.
It was always a Microsoft format first, and that is the difficulty now. Macs need extra software to open one, phones generally will not, browsers do not decode it, and most upload forms reject the extension. A file that played perfectly on the computer it was made on can be effectively unopenable a few years later.
MP4 is the opposite: it plays on everything without anyone installing anything. Converting keeps the footage and drops the dependency on one vendor's software.
The conversion is a full re-encode, because nothing in a browser can read Windows Media video directly, so it takes roughly as long as the video plays. A few minutes of footage is quick; a long recording is worth starting and leaving. It all runs on your machine, with no upload and no watermark.
No browser can decode Windows Media video, so converting one needs a decoder that is not built in. About 9 MB is fetched the first time and cached for later. It is code, not your video - the file itself never leaves your device.
Roughly as long as the video plays, sometimes a little longer on a slower machine. Unlike some formats there is no shortcut here: the video has to be decoded and re-encoded in full, because nothing in the browser can read it as it is.
There is some loss, because the video is re-encoded rather than copied. At the default settings it is not something you would notice next to the original, and most WMV files are modest enough in resolution that the result is comfortably faithful.
No. Files bought from old Windows Media stores carry licence protection that has to be removed by the licence holder, not by a converter. Home-made WMV files have no such protection and convert normally.
Yes. ASF is the container WMV files are stored in, so a file with the .asf extension is read the same way.