Windows Media Video

In 1999, Microsoft introduced the WMV video codec (along with the WMV Screen and WMV Image codecs) as part of the Windows Media framework. The WMV codec is the most well-known codec of the three and is utilized to compress .ASF videos, transforming them into WMV files.

Due to the popularity of Windows, the WMV format became one of the most common video formats in the 2000s. It could be streamed over the Internet and played with various media players, commonly those bundled with Windows.

In addition, YouTube allows users to upload WMV videos, and Windows Media Player's default video file format is WMV. Also, some users may encounter DRM-enabled WMV files downloaded via a commercial video service that they can only play on the device that downloaded it.

However, as Windows Media Player's popularity has waned, and as developers have created cross-platform video file formats that rival WMV files' compression ratio, WMV files have fallen out of favor. As a result, MPEG-4 Video ( .MP4 ) files are now much more popular than WMV files.

You can open a WMV file with various media players. In Windows, you can play a WMV video with the bundled Microsoft Media Player and Microsoft Movies & TV players.

Other applications that open WMV files in Windows, macOS, and Linux include VideoLAN VLC media player , Eltima Elmedia Player , and Kodi .

If you do not want to download a program to open a WMV file, you can upload it to Google Drive and view the video in a web browser. If you are a mobile user, you can open WMV files with J2 Interactive MX Player (Android), Videolabs VLC (Android), olimsoft OPlayer (iOS), and VideoLAN VLC for Mobile (iOS).

Several video conversion tools, including VideoLAN VLC media player, HandBrake, and Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate, can convert WMV files to other formats.

For example, VLC media player can convert WMV files to the following video formats:

Programs that open WMV files

Updated: April 8, 2022