Ok, why can't I take screenshots of dvd's?

Scrum · 09-01-2006, 11:30 AM

I was trying to take some screenshots of a dvd last night to make myself a wall paper. I just did a print screen and then pasted it into a bmp. It was fine as long as I left the movie player open, but once I closed it, it went black. It wouldn't let me convert it to a gif or jpg in PS either.

Is there any way to do this? What gives?

motivez · 09-01-2006, 11:35 AM

You need to turn video acceleration off in the video card properties in order to take screenshots of accelerated video.

Or, find a program online somewhere that can take screenshots for you without having to deal with that.. like ImageGrabber:
http://midocus.net/download.aspx?dow...bberII_NET.zip

Pretty sure it works on DVD's

Publius · 09-01-2006, 11:37 AM

it's because you touch yourself at night.

Ardentfrost · 09-01-2006, 11:38 AM

yeah, lol, you can't do it that way

It's because the DVD is overlayed directly onto the VGA signal (it's generally too high bandwidth otherwise). The black you saw isn't actually black, it's a special color (usually dark, near black magenta) which is recognized by the video card as the spot in which to place the overlay. So, when you took the screenshot, you just got that color (which is called the "colorkey")

So, you gotta force the data to go through VRAM, which can be done by turning off Hardware Acceleration on your video card. You should then be able to take a screenshot of the image (I assume you're using Media Player or PowerDVD)

Scrum · 09-01-2006, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by motivez

You need to turn video acceleration off in the video card properties in order to take screenshots of accelerated video.

Or, find a program online somewhere that can take screenshots for you without having to deal with that.. like ImageGrabber:
http://midocus.net/download.aspx?dow...bberII_NET.zip

Pretty sure it works on DVD's

Imagegrabber doesn't seem to be able to play the dvd.

I'll try disabling the hardware acceleration.

JaJae · 09-01-2006, 01:45 PM

WinDVD has a capture button. Most computers have that installed.

Keep in mind though that one frame of motion picture is typically blurry. It won't be a sharp image.

Holly · 09-01-2006, 06:06 PM

You dont need to go through trouble of turning off acceleration, just grab something like VLC (which is what i use for all dvds and avis etc) and in one of the menus on the top it has a "snapshot" option, which by default will put a snapshot of the movie into your documents/my pictures folder

VLC media player - Overview

VLC is way better than the powerDVD program my comp came with, easier interface and a bunch of nice options for sound settings and such.

Scrum · 09-02-2006, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by Holly

You dont need to go through trouble of turning off acceleration, just grab something like VLC (which is what i use for all dvds and avis etc) and in one of the menus on the top it has a "snapshot" option, which by default will put a snapshot of the movie into your documents/my pictures folder

VLC media player - Overview

VLC is way better than the powerDVD program my comp came with, easier interface and a bunch of nice options for sound settings and such.

That did it.

Thanks.

ArrestMeRedZ28 · 09-02-2006, 10:00 PM

Originally Posted by Holly

You dont need to go through trouble of turning off acceleration, just grab something like VLC (which is what i use for all dvds and avis etc) and in one of the menus on the top it has a "snapshot" option, which by default will put a snapshot of the movie into your documents/my pictures folder

VLC media player - Overview

VLC is way better than the powerDVD program my comp came with, easier interface and a bunch of nice options for sound settings and such.

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