Digital video recorders (DVRs) for closed-circuit television (CCTV) commonly have an in-built capability to export stored video files to optical storage media. In the event that a DVR is damaged, its contents cannot be easily exported. This renders the forensically-sound recovery of proprietary-formatted video files with their timestamps from a DVR hard disk an expensive and challenging exercise. This paper presents and validates a technique that enables digital forensic practitioners to carve video files with timestamps without referring to the DVR hard disk filesystem.