screen shots of movies?

[mysticm]

what is the best way to make screen shots of movies (dvd, avi, mpg etc.)? Any freeware programs out there or cheaper programs I can purchase? thanks!

[pam123]

You need screen capture software.
I don't know of any free ones. What you usually get is a free trial period.
Google for screen capture and then try out a few.

[ski]

Try GrabClipSave.

[TwoRails]

Most PC DVD playing software now-a-days has a screen capture key/ button. Some will only capture while playing the movie, others make you pause the frame you want. Perhaps your burner software came with such a player. Also, I read a long time ago that you can get WMP to do screen captures (thru the Prnt Scrn key) if you Disable Hardware Acceleration. I tried that years ago and it worked, but not reliably, and I don't know if it will work on newer versions. Finally, if your burner (assuming you have one) came with movie editing software, you should be ablel to capture a frame there (never used Window's movie editor so I don't know if it has one).

[mysticm]

Most PC DVD playing software now-a-days has a screen capture key/ button. Some will only capture while playing the movie, others make you pause the frame you want. Perhaps your burner software came with such a player. Also, I read a long time ago that you can get WMP to do screen captures (thru the Prnt Scrn key) if you Disable Hardware Acceleration. I tried that years ago and it worked, but not reliably, and I don't know if it will work on newer versions. Finally, if your burner (assuming you have one) came with movie editing software, you should be ablel to capture a frame there (never used Window's movie editor so I don't know if it has one).

I think that is a good idea. I forgot you can press "prt scr" on your keyboard and it will copy it to clipboard. Then you can open it photoshop what you have on clipboard then save the image. Thanks I totally forgot.

[mysticm]

when I view it in photoshop the movie does ot show only the player shows as an image but inside the player you see blank black area. Why didn't the movie show up? I tried screening it when paused and when playing and still doesn't work.

[ztx]

Videolan has a built in screenshot fuction. :D

http://www.videolan.org/

Small and free video playing software.

Its under video > snapshot, the screenshot will be in your "My Pictures" folder on winxp.

[TwoRails]

when I view it in photoshop the movie does ot show only the player shows as an image but inside the player you see blank black area. Why didn't the movie show up? I tried screening it when paused and when playing and still doesn't work.Ya, that's why I mentioned it's an unreliable way to do it. You also have to disable Hardware Acceleration (under Tools > Options > Performace Tab near the bottom) for it to work at all. I just tried it with WMP 9 and an AVI, and it worked both times: once while playing the file, and once while it was on pause.

[Parangles]

Irfanview will capture from DVD drive. Options>capture/screenshot. It will not capture from streaming video off a website.

[chou726]

i use ACA capture PRO (http://www.acasystems.com/)....it is great....maybe you should have a try........it is a professinal screen capture software......

[RJ]

when I view it in photoshop the movie does ot show only the player shows as an image but inside the player you see blank black area. Why didn't the movie show up? I tried screening it when paused and when playing and still doesn't work.

It's because of the hardware overlay. The prtscr key can only capture what's in the video memory. But usually for movies the overlay is used, which is implemented in your GPU.
When using the overlay, there will only be a black area where the video is supposed to be, and later on, right before the signal is sent to the monitor, the hardware overlay will render the video and put in on top of the black area.
Hence the video image is not in the video memory along with the rest of the desktop, and therefore you can't capture it with PrtScr.

Unless, as mentioned, you disable the overlay. In WMP you can do that by switching off the hardware acceleration completely, dunno about other playback software.

If the overlay has been switched off, the video will be rendered in software and be present in the video memory, then you can capture it using the prtscr button.

But I'd just let overlay enabled and use the capture option of the playback software, they can handle that.

RJ

[pam123]

Guys look at the original date for this thread.

[glc]

Not only that, it's spam. Chou726 hereby gets an official warning.