.WMV file signature
A Windows Media Video file begins with the bytes 30 26 B2 75 8E 66 CF 11 A6 D9 00 AA 00 62 CE 6C at the start of the file. The signature is the same whatever the file is named, which is why a renamed or extensionless WMV file is still recognisable.
Signature
| Offset | Hex | ASCII |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 30 26 B2 75 8E 66 CF 11 A6 D9 00 AA 00 62 CE 6CASF header object GUID, shared with .wma and .asf. |
MIME type: video/x-ms-wmv · usual extensions: .wmv
How to check a file's signature
Without installing anything: drop the file on our detector. It reads the bytes in your browser and shows the hex dump alongside the verdict; nothing is uploaded.
macOS and Linux (Terminal):
xxd -l 32 file.wmv
file file.wmvWindows (PowerShell):
Format-Hex -Path file.wmv -Count 32If the bytes do not match
A file named .wmv whose first bytes are something else is not a WMV file. The common explanations are a wrong or deliberately misleading extension, a download that saved an HTML error page instead of the file, or a container such as ZIP wrapping the real content. The detector reports what the bytes say; the WMV guide explains what a genuine file should contain.