DVD screen captures

[jim2386]

Hey guys,

Is there any free program out there that I can use to do a screen capture of a DVD? thanks!

-Jim

[setarip]

1) Use Windows media Player - TURN OFF HARDWARE ACCELERATION

Press the Alt and Printscreen keys at the same time. A copy will be in your Clipboard. Use a paint or graphics program to "Paste" and then save.

OR

2) Load the appropriate .VOB file into VirtualDubMOD. Move slider until you see the frame you want to capture. Select "Copy to clipboard" or "Snapshot source frame"

[mitchgrrt]

> 1) Use Windows media Player - TURN OFF HARDWARE ACCELERATION

> Press the Alt and Printscreen keys at the same time. A copy will be in your
> Clipboard. Use a paint or graphics program to "Paste" and then save.


I tried this (couldn't find the option to turn off hardware acceleration) and it did the funniest thing. I find the scene in the DVD that I want, pause the DVD player, capture to the clipboard, and then paste into another program. I tried Paint and some other programs. The image looked OK. Then I saved the image, say as foo.bmp. The image looked like it was saved OK. Then I stopped the DVD player and re-opened foo.bmp. Now foo.bmp is empty. Before it had the image I wanted to save.

This is really mysterious to me. I tried it with a couple of different DVD playback programs, and a couple of different graphics capture programs like Paint, and it kept doing the same thing. Can someone explain what's going on, and how to capture a scene from a DVD? Thanks.

[jmet]

Using screen shots is vital in my tutorials and/or guides. I use Jasc "Paint Shop Pro 8". It has several options to choose from.
Below is the actual "Setup" screen of taking a screen shot in Paint Shop Pro 8.

[mitchgrrt]

I don't have that program. The previous response in this thread indicated Paint should work. I am totally baffled about why Paint is behaving so strangely. It's almost like the clipboard is not working properly, maybe because the DVD is copy protected.

Does anybody else have insights into this? Thanks.

[jmet]

Paint will work, its just limited to what it can do.

[mitchgrrt]

... only in my case it's not working. I capture a picture in Paint, and it looks OK, but then afterwards as soon as I close the DVD player, the image inside Paint is gone! See description above.

It almost seems like a Windows problem, not a DVD player or Paint problem. Has anybody ever seen this?

[mitchgrrt]

I found an answer that worked in another forum. In case anyone is interested here is the link. Thanks.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.os.ms-windows.video/browse_frm/thread/972f6272418fb853/cf3403a35d78bb72?_done=%2Fgroup%2Fcomp.os.ms-windows.video%3F&_doneTitle=Back+to+topics&_doneTitle=Back&&d#cf3403a35d78bb72

[sfheath]

Hmm, so the answer is, turn off Hardware Acceleration?

[mitchgrrt]

Yes, temporarily, turning off Hardware Acceleration seems to make capturing a single screen work better. Then you want to turn it back on when playing the DVD or doing other things.

I don't know if this is a general solution but it worked for me.

[jeanl]

hardware acceleration writes the video directly to the video buffer, in overlay mode (that's why it's called acceleration!). This means you can't capture the result because none of the screen capture programs access the hardware video buffer...
Jeanl

[setarip]

To mitchgrrt

What do you mean that you found the answer (Turn off hardware acceleration) in "another forum"?.

That was MY suggestion in THIS thread - and you indicated that you couldn't turn it off...

[mitchgrrt]

I didn't know how to turn it off. It's pretty buried several levels inside Control Panel. Your suggestion was worded "Use Windows media Player - TURN OFF HARDWARE ACCELERATION" which made me think it was something I could do from inside Windows Media Player.

- Mitch

[jeanl]

Re: To mitchgrrt

Originally posted by setarip

That was MY suggestion in THIS thread - and you indicated that you couldn't turn it off...

Take it easy setarip
We all know you suggested that first!!
Jeanl

[mitchgrrt]

Hey once again thanks a lot to setarip and the others who helped me find an answer! I was able to successfully complete my little video project with your help.

- Mitch