Extract text from surveillance videos (HAV)
To convert HAV videos to another format, you need Hikvision iVMS-4200 or other Video software.
To convert other file formats to the "DVR Security Video" file type, you need software like Hikvision iVMS-4200 or a similar tool.
The .HAV file is a proprietary video container format generated by Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) and IP security cameras. It is primarily used by surveillance systems manufactured by Hisharp, Hanwha Vision, and Hikvision to store continuous or motion-triggered video recordings.
Users typically need specialized, manufacturer-provided software such as Hikvision iVMS-4200 or custom DVR playback tools to open these files. The main disadvantage of the .HAV format is its proprietary, closed nature. These files often use custom wrappers around standard video streams (like H.264), making them unreadable by standard media players like VLC or Windows Media Player. They frequently include proprietary watermarks, multiplexed audio channels, and embedded timestamps to ensure legal admissibility, which further blocks standard video editing software.
To share security footage with law enforcement or view it on standard devices, you must convert .HAV to MP4 or AVI. Doing so may strip out proprietary metadata or tamper-proof digital signatures if they are not permanently burned into the video stream.
Because it is a closed format, standard online video converters routinely fail to process .HAV files. Often, only the original DVR software or specialized manufacturer players can properly read or export the video data. If our analysis detects a supported underlying video codec embedded within the proprietary wrapper, viewing or conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your HAV file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted IFV, VDR and REC1 files.
If you want to convert HAV file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use Hikvision iVMS-4200 or similar software from the "Surveillance Video Recording Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to HAV, try Hikvision iVMS-4200 or another comparable tool in the "Surveillance Video Recording Storage" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our HAV converter.