Extracting Pictures from a DVD

[Shakey Jake33]

Okay I couldn't work out exactly where the hell to stick this topic, so this looked like a pretty good place.

Anyway, I have a DVD with an Image Gallery. There are some rather nice images on there, so I am interested in extracting them. Suprisingly, I couldn't find anything to really tell me how (plenty of Picture DVD authoring topics, but no extraction topics). Does anyone know?

Now I'm not really too familiar with in-depth specifics of DVD construction, bar video, so I'm not sure how pictures are encoded onto a DVD, so I can't really tell you much about it. It seems to be a pretty standard image gallery though, if that helps.

Thanks.

[redwudz]

Have you tried a DVD player program like PowerDVD? It lets you grab images off of a video. I suspect they are in video format anyway. (Not seperate JPGs or other still formats.)

[overloaded_ide]

I second that PowerDVD suggestion.

It may depend how the DVD is built, but I have played a picture DVD in PowerDVD and captured stills from it. I don't know how the source images were authored to the disk for that though. The disk I did just showed a picture for so long then moved for to the next picture and so forth like a timer thing and I forget if it even had any audio since all I was interested in was the pics.

And of course I have grabed alot of stills from videos also.

If your not familar with the program, it has a camera in the controls menu, right click that and select save to file or clipboard (I do files) and something like screen size or image and (I choose image).
I think it saves the stills in the stupid MY Pictures folder instead of letting you choose where to save them yourself. It might have been another program that did that?

When it happened it was hard to find the pictures since I NEVER use the MY crap and forget about those folders even being there and it uses it's own naming system like pdf001 or something, so I didn't even know what to search for.
Not sure if that was PowerDVD or not, so I mention that in case it was you won't have the same problem I had. I also found alot of other lost stills when I finally found those

One of the players I used lets you set the filename and folder to whatever you want then it just adds numbers like 001 002 etc.. and I use so many programs I often forget which is exactly what unless I am actually doing it.

[gsh]

I've found the capture facility in both PowerDvD and WinDVD somewhat less than ideal - unless I'm missing something, there's no way to increase the quality of the captures, so you're stuck with 72dpi. What prog would you suggest for high quality caps?

[tlegion]

The images that are captured are the same resolution as the video, namely 720x480. If you're lucky, the images won't be interlaced.

[BJ_M]

virtualdubMOD is also good for this

[Darth Paris]

virtualdubMOD is also good for this

That would work, but you would have to extract the .vobs so it would be alot of extra work.

Power DVD is the way to go.

[BJ_M]

you dont have to extract the vobs --- just drop the vobs into v-dubmod

the advantage to this is that you can also filter or resize your images at the some time (the resizer in vdub is about the best you can get anywhere (tested extensivly)

[Darth Paris]

oh, my fault. I didn't realize you could import diretly from the DVD.

[thecoalman]

unless I'm missing something, there's no way to increase the quality of the captures, so you're stuck with 72dpi. What prog would you suggest for high quality caps?

DPI or resolution has nothing to do with actual size. DVD video at it's best is 720x480. A 720x480 image at 72 dpi or 1000 dpi is still the same image. Even high end professional cameras use 72 dpi.

Since your source is only 720x480 don't expect much. In camers terms that's a .35 megapixel camera. I use power DVD or the capture app in my image editor.

[overloaded_ide]

Yes it's the source that counts!

Example, while not really excellent, I did capture stills using Power DVD from a DVD I created from a VHS-C camcorder tape. Capture from tape was at 352X480 direct to mpeg2 to author the disk with. While the results where alot better than I expected for a still image they were not photo quality. But then the recording itself was poorly shot!

Capturing from near Commercail Quality DVD however has given me almost photo quality stills! Maybe they were actually photo quality? Depends how you resize and which direction you go. I went larger for a small poster.
Results were great for what we wanted.

Both above were captured with Power DVD.

If I had used a real comercail DVD who knows how good that would have been?

[thecoalman]

Capturing from near Commercail Quality DVD however has given me almost photo quality stills! Maybe they were actually photo quality? Depends how you resize and which direction you go. I went larger for a small poster.
Results were great for what we wanted.

Actually overload it's not anywhere near photo quality. If your using a good image editor it can produce some good results. When it upsizes the image it fills in the missing info but the image won't have the sharpness and the detail of a photo quality image.


Here's some examples this first one is zoomed in on a 6.4 megapixel image which is about or beyond what a 35mm camera can produce.



Same image zoomed in if it was captured from a DVD which is a .35 megapixels, images from the DVD will appear even at less quality that this.



How the above image looks when it is upsized, like I said a good editor can do a pretty good job of filling in the data.



Here's a cropped portion of the original 6.4 megapixel image at full quality for perspective on what I'm zooming in on.



The same portion that's been downsized to 720x480 then upsized to match the one above. This is where the editor comes in and fills in the missing data. edit:the entire image was downsized to 720x480, this image was cropped from that.





And finally a thumbnail of the whole image, I'm using the kid in the black shirt for these examples.

[BJ_M]

we blow up D1 sized images and HD size and 2 - 4k images anywhere from 5 - 10x for posters ..

i can get very good results from 720x480 to 4k-5k ...

a lot depends on the source (mine are good) and how it is done .. photoshop for example doesnt not do a good job ...

[thecoalman]

photoshop for example doesnt not do a good job ...

Maybe you need a cheap $100 editor like mine....see the third example. Of course this is from an excellent source image.

[BJ_M]

photoshop for example doesnt not do a good job ...

Maybe you need a cheap $100 editor like mine....see the third example. Of course this is from an excellent source image.

it doesnt look that good - certainly not good enough for a big poster or billboard .. but at avg small 40x20 poster it would be ok ..

[thecoalman]

Well i only blew it up to a little over 3000px wide which realistically will make a nice 8x10 but not a lot of detail, If I blew it up more it would remove the pixelazation, doesn't really matter though you would just have a giant blurry image.

[overloaded_ide]

Actually overload it's not anywhere near photo quality. If your using a good image editor it can produce some good results. When it upsizes the image it fills in the missing info but the image won't have the sharpness and the detail of a photo quality image.

I think we all need to forget the math and theories which prove things don't work and look at the facts as they are!

Capture from DVD using PowerDVD saved as BMP then opened in my graphics program was 2pixels to the inch and around 360 inches wide when I went to resample it!! Now exactly WHO is up sizing a 360" wide image??? That I would call DOWNSIZING to 360 dpi and 3"x 4.5" and no filling in was needed to blur the image.



The above 2 images are cropped from the still image after it was printed on a cheap matt paper, then scanned at 100dpi on a cheap scanner. Can you tell which image is 100dpi and 360 dpi before being printed? Both images had been resized to 3"x 4.5" before printing and the crop was after scanning. Also you are now looking at them about twice or more the actual printed size, each image is only about 18k.

If I had tried I could have had much better quality.

[overloaded_ide]

That is a very small part of a capture I resampled to 4"x6", about what you get from "one hour photo" for a 35mm camera

Perhaps that's another thing, what IS photo quality really? Standard photo size 4"x6", 8"X10" or 40"x60" poster???

[BJ_M]

overloaded_ide

a 720 x 480 image is not 360" wide .. hehehe

[overloaded_ide]

At 2 pixels per inch it is, and that's how it opens by default in my progams as a .bmp file

2dpi X 360"= 720

This little cut is from an image I sized to 10"wide, cropped this out, printed to dull cheap matt paper and scaned at 100dpi.



Sooner or later I will get the sizing right so I can get a decent 50k image, this one is about 12k. When I do larger I get way over the 50k limit.

Hey I got a 49k image



This one I took a capture, sized to 20" wide, cropped out about an 8"X10" to print, scanned it, cropped out this section of the scan. This image when printed was about 6" part of a 20" wide image.

[thecoalman]

This isn't a theory I have it's facts, take a good look at the images and the explanations of each image. To clue you in a little better if you examine the first two pics and there explanations you'll see that it states "zoomed in". These are not images I resized (the 740x480 image was resized beforehand) but images that I zoomed in on and did a screen capture.

First thing you have to understand is Resolution or DPI has absolutley nothing to do with the actual values of an image. It's a zero, nadda doesn't mean a thing. I can post a 1 dpi image or a 1000 dpi image and they will be exactly the same.

The only time resolution comes into play is when your scanning or printing. For scanning higher resolutions or DPI will give you more detail. For printing it sets the default size of the image. If you have a 500 dpi image and its one inch it will print at one inch by default. It's similar to to the difference between 4:3 and 16:9 video. They are both 720x480 but don't display at that size. They display at 4:3 or 16:9......

You can't get more out of a image than what is there, you can mask the flaws btu side by side comparisons like the ones I have posted show the difference.

Perhaps that's another thing, what IS photo quality really? Standard photo size 4"x6", 8"X10" or 40"x60" poster???

A professional 35mm picture will start to show very visible grain beyond a 8x10. The fourth image is or beyond what a 35mm can make. The fourth image is actual size. If it was entire image you would need a monitor that could go to a display setting of 3000x?(not sure)

[overloaded_ide]

I knew most of that coalman, but maybe learned something too somewhere along the line.

I geuss what it amounts to is Photo quality is in the eye of the beholder, like they say about beauty

It mostly depends what you compare to what, what size, what output ect..
And the source of course. My images are sections of a DVD capture.

First I don't often compare to a $1,000 camera simply because most people don't have them. So for photo quality I am probably thinking more like the Wal-mart type $50 35MM camera and wal-mart type prints, about what the average person has
What is photo quality then on a 20" wide print?
Of course some of us do have better!

As for my pics, they have been printed then scanned then saved as .JPG which is a lossy format I beleave also. So what I posted is not even as good as the actuall prints were and they were on cheap low quality matt paper even! Quality paper would have made them better, but I don't want to waste it, not cheap and I don't have much on hand at the time.

SO in trying to decide if my disk label or jacket cover will be photo quality, I would have to say YES or NEARLY!
Though at 20" wide compared to a 20" wide poster taken with a $3,000 camera it is probably not

Though not pefect, considering all the losses the image went through durring printing, scanning, ect.. I would have to say the last large picture was still very good for what it was!! It is a 6" wide section of a 20" wide image! I took a screen capture, inlarged it to 20"wide x?? high, cut that 6" wide picture section! Also keep in mind on that picture those people are in the background and the camera was focused on the guy in front which I cut most of him out. So those people in the actuall movie picture were not perfectly clear anyway!

And depending what a person wants to do, I do know for a fact my daughter has made a couple normal sized photo quality prints where she has played around taking a screen capture and through some editing has put herself in that picture. She scanned a photo of herself, then cut herself out and inserted into the captured image then printed. So I did have an actual print and photo of the same thing to compare!
When comparing with the normal eye there was no difference in her on the printout or the actuall photo she scanned from. The entire print was photo quality. I am sure I could see a difference if I zoomed or magnified enough on each, but real people don't do that normally when looking at something. When was the last time you were at Block Buster and some guy was examining a wall poster with a microscope???

Although not perfect (shadows not correct type stuff) the print is good enough that she has had friends ask "Wow, when did you meet them". SO the photo quality of that print is good enough to fool a 12-15 yr old when they see it hanging on her wall framed as a photo. And these are not dumb kids! Of course she tells them she made it, and then they are even more amazed!
This is the same 13yr girl I gave the Jeep Cherokee, Camcorder, etc... to.
Her camcorder is better than mine!

But I think even though we are still on topic, we have gotten away from the orginal post alot now

Anyway, I have a DVD with an Image Gallery. There are some rather nice images on there, so I am interested in extracting them

So regaurdless of the quality, his source is gonna be a DVD anyway. And if it's done as a video then as far as I know not much other choice, but this is not something I do much. Maybe for a disk label or jacket when I don't like the orginal that came with my DVD, or when I make my own DVDs I always do captures. Never do much with picture disks. Everything is Video Here.
I have alot of Public Domain movies on DVD that have just a crap black disk and title. When backing them up now I have been using some still captures to make my own labels for printable disks. Most are not that great, but then neither is the source DVD for quality of the old films used.
Ok to watch, but kinda degraded VHS type quality on some of them, but it's either that or do without, and I like those movies and stars.

[thecoalman]

It's a 8 megapixel Canon Eos that took that picture (6 megapixel mode), wish it was mine. Really good deal though because it's compatible with the regular 35 mm lenses. I printed out a 8x10 with that image and it looked fabulous. There's a chainlink fence in the background and you were able to see the wires... that's the difference clarity and detail.




Here's a better example in focus.


Generally a 300 dpi image printed at 300 dpi produces a photo quality image. To maintain that for a 20x16 inch print you would need a 24 megapixel camera There's other factors such as the printer too. The Eos would produce a image good enough for printing that large, I'm pretty sure it would produce a better image than a 35mm.

Since your stuck with the source for DVD there really is no choice but use it. Upsizing the image works well but it softens the image.

[overloaded_ide]

Yea, I agree the better the camera and such. It's just when working with an existing image you have to do the best you can with whatever it is and however it was processed.

[Shakey Jake33]

Hey thanks for the help guys!

So I assume I just rip the frame from the VOB with VirtualDubMod then? Sounds simple enough.

Image quality is kinda paramout see, and screen-capping it never quite looks as good.

[thecoalman]

Hey thanks for the help guys!

So I assume I just rip the frame from the VOB with VirtualDubMod then? Sounds simple enough.

Image quality is kinda paramout see, and screen-capping it never quite looks as good.

You would be screen capping using VirtualDub, it's the same thing. Try a few different apps as suggested above, you might get some better results with different apps. Personally I use powerDVD.

Upsizing the image after you cap it will produce better results for printing larger images. Why not get creative and add a few caps to the same image, which will reduce the size at which each cap has to be printed.

[Fluffbutt]

Can I add my 5c worth?

I mad eup a batch file and ini for mencoder that takes a range of frames and blows them up to 1400 odd using menc's pretty good built-in lanzcos or bicubic routines.

bat file:

mplayer -include "screenshot.ini" "E:\DVD\VTS_02_1.VOB"

ini file:

vo=tga
ss=00:10:00
frames=10
#aspect=1.78/1
#autoaspect=1
nosound=1
sws=10
vf=scale=2048:1152

change the 'ss' number for the time period to start, and the 'frame' number for how many to do. Menc's res sems limited at 2048x1152, for some reason. When I go higher the pix are blank.

If you don't use mencoder, ignore all this (LOL)
If you can't be bothered ripping the vob files, ignore all this..