whats the best Screen capture prog?

[NinjaR0ach]

I need a screen capture program to capture a pic from PowerDVD. I've downloaded two that don't seem to wanna work and when I try to "print screen" and paste in paintshop pro or MSpaint it continues to play the movie not take a picture. Any suggestions of a good program to use to capture?

[Craig Tucker]

Screen capture programs will not capture a playing video. You can use software such as vdub to save single frames of the video as image files, you would need to rip the video from the DVD first though.

[NinjaR0ach]

Will it have the same quality or will it lose quality if I rip it with vdub?

[Craig Tucker]

Vdub will not rip from a DVD, you need to use DVD ripping software for that there are various guides here.

https://www.videohelp.com/dvdripping

[NinjaR0ach]

Actually I already have the software I just wanna know if it'll reduce the quality at all?

[luap_bopper]

Hope I'm not being rude, but you can capture stills using only PowerDVD (if you turn off hardware acceleration) and whichever photo/paint package you have like Paint Shop Pro. Just pause movie at moment you wish and capture. It will either put them into a directory or onto Windows clipboard. If you choose clipboard you can paste into Paint Shop Pro etc...

Hope this helps.

Luap

[luap_bopper]

Sorry, me again. Forgot to mention Capturing is done via a button in PowerDVD (my version is PowerDVD XP). Do not use the Windows "print screen" facility, this wont work, but the built-in feature in.

Luap

[i_am_dave]

Hope this helps, but no matter what software you use, the best resolution you can hope for is 720x480 (if your movie is NTSC).

One of the advantages to using Vdub is that you will have better control over which frame you choose.

After you rip to hard drive, you can use Vdub to read directly from the VOB files.

I've done exactly what you are trying to do many times when I am creating artwork for my DVD covers.

Good luck!

[Craig Tucker]

Actually I already have the software I just wanna know if it'll reduce the quality at all?

No it will not reduce the quality, with ripping you are just transfering the digital information from the DVD to your hard drive so there is no quality loss.

[NinjaR0ach]

Sorry, me again. Forgot to mention Capturing is done via a button in PowerDVD (my version is PowerDVD XP). Do not use the Windows "print screen" facility, this wont work, but the built-in feature in.

Luap

I have 4.0.11 (it came with my dell...) and I can't find "the button" you're talking about. hardware acceleration is off. But I can't find the button. could you tell me where it is on your version... maybe it's somewhere close on mine.

[DeadLamb]

I have 4.0.11 (it came with my dell...) and I can't find "the button" you're talking about.

One should just be able to hit, errrr C or P for a frame grab.. I forget or at least mix up mutiprograms.. as in windvd is P but power DVD is C.. (I think, or flip that around)

but in the end, I think the version that comes with a Dell has screen capture turned off for some reason. If you hit google and search for info on this ya will see others ran into the same problem.

Hum.. ya might try hypersnap (screen cap program) but it's not free and the demo puts "hyper snap" all over the screen, plus for the cost of that you could buy some other version of DVD software that would let you cap stuff.

I'm going to suggest what others have suggested here. Just rip part of the DVD and then use Vdub to pull a frame, while more work, should work fine for you.

[luap_bopper]

Hi me again.

I will look for exactly where the screen capture button is on my version. Will hopefully let you know tomorrow.

Luap

[secretagent]

Screen capture programs will not capture a playing video

i hate to disagree with a moderator but capture pad a freeware program available at vrtainment.de will capture playing video. see my post in latest news for direct link to program. If the staff finds this to be true I hope it will be added to the fine tools available on this site.

[Craig Tucker]

I hate to disagree with a moderator

OK I should have probrably put most screen capture programs.

And do it again and you will be banned

[g8r]

Hope this helps, but no matter what software you use, the best resolution you can hope for is 720x480 (if your movie is NTSC).

One of the advantages to using Vdub is that you will have better control over which frame you choose.

After you rip to hard drive, you can use Vdub to read directly from the VOB files.

I've done exactly what you are trying to do many times when I am creating artwork for my DVD covers.

Good luck!

Can I use this method to capture high quality stills from a playstation2. Would I capture the video uncompressed and then use vdub to get a specific frame? Thanks