Hi, Still basically a noob. I'm looking for a program that will let me do 3 things on my PC running XP. I want it to:

-take screenshots--but also...

-have a step-feature (frame-by-frame)
-provide exact frame info


I want to make reasonably high-quality screencaps from my own store-bought PAL DVDs. I have the DVDs, already ripped, in AVI & WMV format, but my assumption is: if I am not working from a copy... the quality should automatically be better than anything I can get from a second-gen dup. I got really spoiled with VirtualDub, which does everything I want--but not with VOB files. It only works after converting to Mpeg-2--which I don't (think) I need or necessarily want. The whole thing is to get the best-quality screencap from the source, not a copy of the source--I have those already. Unless some copies are better than others. (Which I kinda doubt, but am not enough of a geek to guess at. So it's possible but seems unlikely.)

I'm perfectly willing to do the screencaps with some external program (or just print-screen & Paint, whatever), if I can find something like Virtual DubMod that will work with the VOB files w/o insisting on converting them. I really need frame info. And a step feature.

Why it's proven so impossible to find these 3 things together I don't know. I expect bec frame info isn't important to most people who just want a media player. None of the freeware or open-source programs I've looked at do that if the DVD in question is PAL/VOB. They all want to convert first, or won't play VOB in the first place. Power DVD is meh, alright--close in that it has a step feature (as does Win DVD, sort of) but no frame info--but at least Power DVD plays the discs. (Huge resource hog though.) VLC is for packets, it can't do frame-by-frame. MPC can't really do the step thang. WMP doesn't provide frame info. And so forth.

If I am looking in the wrong place, & it's actually some other type of application I need, please--any suggestions very welcome! Thanks for your help.

I'm running XP, have plenty of memory, plenty of speed, & plenty of storage space. But not plenty of money. --ezu0