How to capture frames/images from dvd?

[sickmaggot]

Hi! I would like to know on ow to capture frames/images from dvd? I would like to know what dvd software has screen capture?

[jameshgross]

VLC Media Player. See Tools section on left

[Bjs]

Avs dvd player and koolplaya .

Snap's can also be pulled with pgcedit ... it can play component's , it's just not meant for "real" playback .

Pity about ifoedit ... it could do it all ... before xp ... now if you playback dvd , it can's itself with the green screen , and lock's up .

[manono]

PowerDVD

[sickmaggot]

Thanks for the recommendations. One of my friend told me that I can also use WinDVD 7 Platinum if I want to capture some scenes on the dvd but what if I want to capture scenes from other format as well like avi/mpeg?

[guns1inger]

WinDVD plays back avi and mpeg files as well. But then again, so does VLC (previously mentions) and Media Player Classic, and they can both take screenshots.

[FulciLives]

I use VirtualDubMod because it will capture the screen at the original resolution. Just be sure to resize to a proper 1:1 resolution.

For instance a NTSC DVD will capture at 720x480. If it is 4:3 you would resize to 640x480 to look "proper" on your computer screen. If it is 16x9 WS anamorphic then it is still 720x480 but you need to resize differently. You can either resize to 640x360 or 852x480.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[sickmaggot]

Can those players can play flv files? Are there any flv player that has capture scenes? I would like to try those ones too because I like to download videos from youtube.

[Bjs]

Doubt any of those mentioned do ... camstudio might have the option for "all" , "time based" , and "user click the button , I'll snap now" ... and you'll want an flv player , there's more than one around .

[Starman*]

I've used PowerDvd and VirtualDubMod (both mentioned already) extensively as well as others. Some more detailed comment:

PowerDvd is my weapon of choice. It has by far the best keyboard shuttle controls (c=capture, space=pause/run, t=next frame, b=last keyframe, enter=run etc). No need to use mouse. It saves the frame there and then (rather than stick it in a gallery). The deinterlacing for stills is excellent quality.

As noted by others, best to view at fullscreen but capture at original size if you can (eg 720x480, 720x576). If you want to remove any edge noise and resize to say 1024x768, the maths is not difficult but can be daunting for some. I've made a VB calculator to do it for me. If you don't care about cleaning up the edges you can simply upsize disproportionately from say 720x480 to 1024x768. Alternatively you can capture at screen size but the resizing algorithim in any dvd player is unlikely to match the quality of that in a graphics editor.

I used WinDvd for about an hour before uninstalling. Fine for general playback but nowhere near as convenient as PowerDvd for captures.

If you go the freeware VirtualDub route, Use VirtualDubMod rather than VirtualDub because it handles mpeg2 and can do snapshots. The "copy to clipboard" of VirtualDub leaves a 3 pixel band of noise down the right edge (on my pc at least). In VirtualDubMod the "Snaphshot...Frame" seems to leave a clean image. If you are removing edge noise that may be unimportant.

I automate the save in VDb with a macro (using Macro Express) that makes the capture a single hot key operation (saves and renames the files). You can crop and resize with VirtualDubMod (and save the output frame) or save the raw captures as bmps and process in a graphics editor (I use ThumbsPlus batch processing for that). The advantage of using a graphics editor is that you can easily correct individual frames for tone etc. Not so easy with VirtualDubMod.

Re save sizes. Ideally you should save the original in a lossless format. Then you can resize any time without loss. Personally I prefer to resize immediately but you need to know what the end use is. I post mostly on the Net so I'm looking at a screen size of at least 1024x768. I make sure the upsized "good" part of the picture is at least 1024x768. I crop and resize (bicubic) and typically save originals as 95% quality jpeg 1024x768 for fullscreen and 1365x768 for widescreen. For 2.35:1 shows the capture ends up close to 2000x768 pixels.

Starman*