How to take BluRay screen captures - FREE

[SOHkat]

I really need some help and I’m hoping you guys can point me in the right direction as you have in the past.

I need to capture BluRay Screenshots from a DVD. FREE.

I have Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 which has the option to capture, but it is disabled for BluRay. So that doesn’t help. it’s the only HD player I have, so the program to capture must work with it (or have its own player).

I saw FRAPS mentioned on one site, I tried it, and it didn’t work. Never took a screenshot. Read elsewhere that it only works for games.

So, my next question is this. What FREE program actually takes screenshots of BluRay movies? I would prefer to be able to just keep clicking a hot key and have it auto save instead of having to copy and paste it and edit it.

I keep seeing people say to use AnyDVD HD - its on sale right now for $114! well I don’t have that $, I just got a HD laptop to be able to do this only to find out that Cyberlink removed the option…plus I only need it for a few shots here and there. Not worth blowing all that $ on. I can use free trials but I do not own all the DVDs I need shots of yet. So it would have to be a long trial lol.

Can anyone help me? I’m ready to tear my hair out.

[jagabo]

Rip with DVDFab HD Decrypter. Then use any player you want.

[lowellriggsiam]

Can you [ALT] + [Prt Scrn] and then paste it into paint?

[jagabo]

Probably not with PowerDVD9. Maybe if he starts playing a video in another media player first, then starts PowerDVD 9, Print Screen will work (because the other player will get the graphics card video overlay feature, not PowerDVD 9).

[SOHkat]

Rip with DVDFab HD Decrypter. Then use any player you want.

Ok, so that would rip it to the hard drive, but would PowerDVD play it in HD then and the capture button would then be enabled?

PowerDVD 9 doesn't capture with the Print Screen Method, and I need better options then that. I need it to pretty much auto save instead of having to copy and paste each photo.

[redwudz]

If you have a decrypted BD video, you should be able to capture a frame with MPC-HC or even VLC or Zoom Player. Just access the correct .m2ts file from the ripped file and play it, then pause and capture the frame you want. You can usually access the cap in MS Paint and convert it to the format you want.

I don't know if PowerDVD will play from the HDD. It seemed a bit limited for BD playback from a hard drive. TMT3 will, though.

[SOHkat]

Rip with DVDFab HD Decrypter. Then use any player you want.

I read the following thread (granted its over a year old)

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/305208-Powerdvd-9-play-BD-from-Hard-Disk

Seems they think you cannot play a BluRay file from your HDD in PowerDVD9. The last post seems to suggest it might work with the method he describes.

If you have a decrypted BD video, you should be able to capture a frame with MPC-HC or even VLC or Zoom Player. Just access the correct .m2ts file from the ripped file and play it, then pause and capture the frame you want. You can usually access the cap in MS Paint and convert it to the format you want.

I don't know if PowerDVD will play from the HDD. It seemed a bit limited for BD playback from a hard drive. TMT3 will, though.

I need to capture in HD. VLC player doesn't support this. I'm not sure what MPC-HC or Zoom Player is. Do they do giant HD captures? If so and free I'm willing to test them lol.

TMT3 isn't free. I need free. I cannot even afford $20 at this moment.

[jman98]

SOHKat - The original versions of PowerDVD that supported BluRay could take screenshots. Hollywood made them disable it because they were afraid that someone might literally try to copy a BluRay disc that way. Wish I could tell you that I am kidding but I'm not. I'm just passing this on in case you wondered why you can't do it.

[SOHkat]

Yeah I had read about that. But have no idea where to get earlier ones that would support BluRay to use. The method with AnyDVD HD seems to work well...but I'm trying the trial, as I said, no way I'm paying $110+ for a few screenshots. I can understand paying that much if you are doing a lot more with it

[jagabo]

I need to capture in HD. VLC player doesn't support this.

Sure it does. I just did it with shift+s and a Blu-ray rip (MKV). The picture was in My Documents\My Pictures. I'm pretty sure those are the defaults.

[SOHkat]

I need to capture in HD. VLC player doesn't support this.

Sure it does. I just did it with shift+s and a Blu-ray rip (MKV). The picture was in My Documents\My Pictures. I'm pretty sure those are the defaults.

Ok...so, what you are suggesting is to get DVDFab, rip it to the hard drive, then open with VLC, and it will be in blur ray format? Wouldn't I need a BluRay burner for that? I'm so confused when it comes to BluRay haha

I had reseached BluRay support on their site last week and they said it didn't support it, so I guess it just doesn't support it on DVD...

EDIT: Going to try this, any special rip in DVDFab I should try? - Nevermind now I know what you mean by MKV

[jagabo]

VLC doesn't support Blu-ray discs because they are heavily copy protected. An official Blu-ray player must agree to all rules regarding AACS and BD+ encryption -- no copies of anything, ever. Ripping with DVDFab will copy the Blu-ray contents to your hard drive and remove all the copy protection. Once you've done that you can play the M2TS file with VLC and take full HD snapshots.

[SOHkat]

Thank you for explaining all of that I gave it a try and it does work very well! Thank you. But question...is it normal for the video to be really choppy? start stop start stop start pause start pause sort of thing every second

[jagabo]

Playing 1080p h.264 video requires a multithreaded h.264 decoder and a multicore CPU. Unfortunately, VLC doesn't have a multithreaded h.264 decoder, only a single threaded decoder. Hence the jerky playback. If you have a graphics card with GPU h.264 decoding (DXVA), and a recent version of VLC, you can use that feature of VLC to get smooth playback. Try selecting the "Direct3D video output" device. Tools -> Preferences -> Video -> Output.

You can also try MPCHC which has its own built in multithreaded h.264 decoder and the ability to save snapshots.

[SOHkat]

Ok, so now I'm back, ready to capture something from another movie...and DVDFab doesn't work....it says the BluRay Ripper has expired.

Is there someway to get this file on my computer & opened in VLC in HD?