.DVR file extension - Microsoft Windows XP Media Center TV recording
What is dvr file? How to open dvr files?
File extension dvr is probably best know for its use in old Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition, which introduced the DVR-MS video format for storing recorded TV content.
It was eventually replaced by the dvr-ms extension by later versions of Microsoft Media Center.
It is similar to ASF format, DVR-MS format uses Personal Video Recorder (PVR) functionality, including time-shifting, live pause, and simultaneous record and playback. Video data are encoded as MPEG-2 video stream and audio data are encoded as MPEG-1 Layer II audio stream.
Some satellite and Digital-TV HDD receivers record TV content in the similar recording format as Windows Media Center and they use file extension dvr for recorded files as well.
This dvr file type entry was marked as obsolete and no longer supported file format.
This type of file is no longer actively used and is most likely obsolete. This is typically the case for system files in old operating systems, file types from long discontinued software, or previous versions of certain file types (like documents, projects etc.) that were replaced in higher versions of their original programs.
Updated: January 20, 2025
The default software associated to open dvr file:
Company or developer:
VideoLAN Project Team
Very popular multimedia player developed for Windows, Apple Mac, Linux, Unix, and various other operating systems and platforms.
VLC can playback many of the video formats (AVI, MKV, OGV, WMV, ASF, MOV...) and audio formats (MP3, AAC, M4A, OGG, FLAC...) as well as support of subtitles for video. It can also be used as a streaming server and multimedia transcoder.
Microsoft Windows Media Player 
Company or developer:
Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft Windows Media Player is the default multimedia player/manager pre-installed in Microsoft Windows. WMP can manage music, videos, and pictures on a computer, play or view them, sync them with portable devices, or burn them on CD/DVD media. It also supports home media sharing with other computers. In Windows 11, you can still find it under the name Windows Media Player Legacy.
Windows Media Center
(obsolete software)
Company or developer:
Microsoft Corporation
Windows Media Center was a media player and digital video recorder for Microsoft Windows. It also managed most of the digital TV tuners for computers. Windows Media Center supports playback of popular video and audio formats, including 3GP, AAC, AVCHD, MPEG-4, WMV, WMA, AVI, DivX, MOV, and Xvid files.
List of software applications associated to the .dvr file extension
Recommended software programs are sorted by OS platform (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android etc.)
and possible program actions that can be done with the file: like open dvr file, edit dvr file, convert dvr file, view dvr file, play dvr file etc. (if exist software for corresponding action in File-Extensions.org's database).
Hint:
Click on the tab below to simply browse between the application actions, to quickly get a list of recommended software, which is able to perform the specified software action, such as opening, editing or converting dvr files.
Software that open dvr file - Microsoft Windows XP Media Center TV recording
Programs supporting the exension dvr on the main platforms Windows, Mac, Linux or mobile. Click on the link to get more information about listed programs for open dvr file action.
