WTV to SPH Converter

Online WTV to SPH audio extraction — fast and free

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Online Conversion

Go from WTV video to SPH audio without desktop tools. The entire extraction runs in the cloud through your browser.

Cloud Conversion

Processing runs entirely in the cloud, so your computer or phone does none of the heavy lifting. Just upload and download.

Clean Experience

Convert your files without intrusive interruptions. Registered users enjoy an even smoother, ad-free conversion workflow.

How to convert WTV to SPH

1

Select files from Computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, URL or by dragging it on the page.

2

Choose sph or any other format you need as a result (more than 200 formats supported)

3

Let the file convert and you can download your sph file right afterwards

About formats

WTV (Windows Recorded TV Show) is a digital video recording format developed by Microsoft and introduced in July 2008 with the Windows Media Center TV Pack for Windows Vista. The format was designed to replace the earlier DVR-MS recording format used by Windows Media Center, offering a more capable container for recording live television broadcasts. WTV files store video in MPEG-2 or H.264 encoding alongside multiple audio tracks in AC-3 or MPEG audio format, along with closed caption data, electronic program guide metadata, and copy protection flags. The container uses an internal directory structure that supports time-shifting features, allowing Windows Media Center to record content while simultaneously enabling playback from the beginning of the recording. A rich metadata framework preserves detailed program information from the electronic program guide (EPG), including show title, episode description, genre, ratings, and original air date, making it easy to organize and browse recorded content. The format supports both standard definition and high definition recordings from digital cable, over-the-air ATSC, and ClearQAM tuner sources. WTV files are natively accessible through Windows Media Center and can be converted to the simpler DVR-MS format using built-in Windows tools. While Windows Media Center was discontinued after Windows 7 (with limited support in Windows 8), WTV files remain in personal media archives and can be processed by third-party video tools.
Developer: Microsoft
Initial release: July 16, 2008
SPH is the file extension for audio stored in the NIST SPHERE (SPeech HEader REsources) format, a standard created by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology around 1990. Built for speech research, SPH files carry a 1024-byte ASCII header packed with metadata — database identifiers, channel counts, sample rates, byte ordering, and compression type — making every recording self-describing. The underlying audio is typically 16-bit linear PCM sampled at 16 kHz, though other configurations are permitted. Researchers at NIST, DARPA, and universities worldwide rely on SPH for distributing speech corpora such as TIMIT, Switchboard, and the LDC collections that underpin modern automatic speech recognition systems. A key advantage is that the human-readable header lets scripts parse recording metadata without binary decoding. The format's strict standardization also eliminates ambiguity when sharing datasets across institutions and platforms. Because SPH files store uncompressed PCM, they preserve full audio fidelity — critical when training acoustic models where even small artifacts can skew results.
Initial release: 1990

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the benefit of converting WTV to SPH?

Extracting audio from a WTV recording into SPH lets you save the soundtrack of a TV show for offline listening on any device.

How do I open an SPH file?

NIST speech tools and linguistic research applications process SPHERE audio files.

Will the audio quality match the original?

You can set the output bitrate to match or exceed the original audio quality. Higher settings preserve more detail from the WTV source.

How fast is the audio extraction?

Audio extraction is quicker than full video conversion since only the sound track is processed. Most files are done within seconds.

Can I choose the audio bitrate?

Yes. Adjust the bitrate, sample rate, and channel count before converting to get the SPH quality that suits your listening needs.