File extension WMV is used for multimedia files using the Windows Media Video (WMV) compression format. A WMV sample file is provided. Free WMV file players and editors are listed.

File Extension: .WMV

MIME Type: video/x-ms-wmv

File Content: Audio and video data.

What is WMV? WMV is a short name for Windows Media Video, a video and audio compression file format developed by Microsoft in 2003.

WMV is used as the file extension for video and audio files encoded with WMV format.

Technical notes on WMV file formats:

• WMV is actually a codec for video compression.
• Usually, video data compressed with WMV codec can be stored inside the ASF container file format.
• Video data compressed with WMV codec can also be stored inside the AVI container file format.

Here are the first 128 bytes of a sample WMV file dumped in HEX values:

30 26 b2 75 8e 66 cf 11 a6 d9 00 aa 00 62 ce 6c 0..u.f.......b.l
e6 14 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 00 00 01 02 33 26 ..............3.
b2 75 8e 66 cf 11 a6 d9 00 aa 00 62 ce 6c 50 00 .u.f.......b.lP.
00 00 00 00 00 00 26 00 02 00 02 00 02 00 02 00 ................
43 00 6f 00 6e 00 76 00 65 00 72 00 74 00 65 00 C.o.n.v.e.r.t.e.
64 00 20 00 66 00 72 00 6f 00 6d 00 20 00 41 00 d...f.r.o.m...A.
56 00 49 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 a1 dc V.I.............
ab 8c 47 a9 cf 11 8e e4 00 c0 0c 20 53 65 68 00 ..G.........Seh.

"0x3026b275" is magic number for ASF files.

WMV sample file: Click sample.wmv to download.

Audio and video data stored in WMV files can be retrieved, played or edited by popular free software:

• Windows Media Player - Plays WMV and other multimedia files.
• Windows Media Encoder - Converts and generates WMV files.
• MPlayer - Plays WMV files and other multimedia files.