CRW to HRZ Converter

Fast CRW to HRZ conversion — free and fully online

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Quality Preserved

The converter retains maximum visual fidelity during CRW to HRZ conversion — your photos maintain their sharpness, color accuracy, and detail.

Intuitive Design

Converting CRW to HRZ is as simple as drag, pick, and click. The interface is designed for speed and clarity — even first-time users get results instantly.

Universal Access

The converter runs in any modern web browser. Use it on your desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone — no platform restrictions.

How to convert CRW to HRZ

1

Select files from Computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, URL or by dragging it on the page.

2

Choose hrz or any other format you need as a result (more than 200 formats supported)

3

Let the file convert and you can download your hrz file right afterwards

About formats

CRW is Canon's first-generation RAW image format, based on the Camera Image File Format (CIFF) specification developed jointly by Canon, Kodak, and other imaging companies in the late 1990s. Used by Canon's consumer and prosumer cameras from approximately 1998 through the early 2000s — including the PowerShot G-series, EOS D30, EOS D60, and EOS 10D — CRW files store the unprocessed 12-bit sensor readout in a heap-based container structure that differs fundamentally from the TIFF-derived approach used by most other camera manufacturers. The CIFF container organizes data into a hierarchical directory of heap entries, each identified by type and tag, containing the raw image data, JPEG thumbnail, EXIF information, and Canon's proprietary metadata including White Balance tables and Picture Style parameters. CRW was eventually replaced by the CR2 format starting with the EOS-1D Mark II in 2004, as Canon moved to a TIFF-based container that aligned more closely with industry conventions and supported higher bit depths. One advantage of CRW files is historical completeness: they preserve the full original sensor data from an important transitional period in digital photography, and the 12-bit captures from cameras like the EOS D30 still produce excellent results when reprocessed with modern RAW converters. Broad legacy support is another strength — despite its age, CRW remains readable by Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, RawTherapee, and other modern converters, ensuring these early digital negatives remain accessible.
Developer: Canon
Initial release: 1998
HRZ is a simple raster image format associated with slow-scan television (SSTV), a method of transmitting still images over radio frequencies used by amateur radio operators since the late 1950s when Copthorne Macdonald pioneered the technology. HRZ files store images at a fixed resolution of 256x240 pixels in raw RGB format, with each pixel represented as three bytes (red, green, blue) at 8 bits per channel, producing uncompressed files of exactly 184,320 bytes. The format has no header, no metadata, and no compression — the file is simply a sequential dump of raw pixel data in row-major order. This extreme simplicity reflects the format's origins in the amateur radio community, where SSTV images are transmitted as audio tones encoding luminance and chrominance values over narrow-bandwidth HF (shortwave) radio channels. The fixed 256x240 resolution corresponds to common SSTV transmission modes, and HRZ files serve as the digital capture or storage medium for received SSTV transmissions. One advantage is the format's zero-overhead structure: with no parsing, decompression, or metadata processing required, HRZ files can be read by any program capable of reading raw pixel data with known dimensions — a single function call in virtually any programming language. The format's connection to amateur radio SSTV culture is another notable aspect: HRZ files document a unique form of image communication where operators transmit photographs over thousands of miles using nothing but radio waves and audio encoding, a practice that continues today alongside digital modes. HRZ files can be opened by ImageMagick, GIMP, and specialized SSTV software.
Developer: SSTV Community
Initial release: 1985

Frequently Asked Questions

Why convert CRW to HRZ?

CRW is Canon's legacy RAW format that modern software increasingly drops support for — converting to HRZ future-proofs your older Canon photo library.

What software can open HRZ?

Open HRZ files using slow-scan television software, IrfanView, and XnView.

Can I convert multiple CRW files to HRZ at once?

Absolutely — Convertio lets you upload multiple CRW files simultaneously. Each is converted to HRZ and available for individual download.

How fast is the CRW to HRZ conversion?

Speed depends on file size, but most CRW to HRZ conversions complete in under a minute. Server-side processing ensures quick turnaround.

How long are converted files stored?

Converted HRZ files remain available for download for up to 24 hours, after which they are automatically deleted from Convertio servers.