Need Some Screen Cap Know How

[jake_fink]

I am both impatient and techincally inept. I can't take decent digital pictures to save my life and find it time consuming and frustrating saving them onto my computer then putting them in photobucket and all that. I would love to be able to get some screen shots of a few of my dvds though, but I have no idea how to do so. I press Printscreen but never get anything but a black field where the dvd image should be. My print screen program is not part of my Dell or Office package, it is provided by something called Gadwin systems.

If anyone can help me figure out how to capture images from a dvd I'd really appreciate it. I hate being the least technologically savvy guy in the room. Oh shame!

 

[Hemingway Jones]

Do you have an Apple, by any chance? I know how to do it with a stock Apple, but that's it.

 

[jake_fink]

Farmer in the well...

No, a Dell. Is it much more difficult with a PC?

 

[Hemingway Jones]

Well, a Stock Apple iBook G4 will take screen-grabs with a specific technique. A PC requires software for screen-grabs. I'm sure someone here will recommend a good software for you.

My expertise ends at the Apple... sorry.

 

[Irena]

I use PowerDVD to watch DVDs on my PC, and all I need to do is press "C" while the movie is playing or paused. The images save automatically into My Documents, but I think you can go into "Properties" and change their destination. I hope this helps!

Oh, there is also a little option button on the little player bar, but it's much easier to just use the keyboard.

 

[Baggers]

You may need a DVD player. I use an earlier version of PowerDVD that came with the PC I bought about two years ago. It also came with the Gateway Laptop that my wife got for her birthday last year. It uses either a hotkey stroke or mouse click to capture frame grabs like this one:

And, yes, I'm amassing a collection of stills in order to pursue the Quartermain Vest. If anyone's interested, I'm willing to share.

Cheers!

 

[scotrace]

Always interested, Baggers!

 

[jake_fink]

I FIGURED IT OUT!!!

Now I can spend my spare time gathering screen shots to share with you FLoungers! Thanks guys.

 

[Baggers]

Always interested, Baggers!

Well, I won't hijack this thread. Suffice to say that I'm collecting frame grabs at this point. I'll post something in the General Attire and Accoutrements section as soon as I can sort through them and pick the best ones for the purpose.

But back on topic, jake_fink, what was the secret to sorting out your problem? Is it something proprietary to Gadwin, or is it something that could be used with, say, Windows Media Player (with which I have the same issue)?

Cheers!

P.S. "FLoungers," I like that!

 

[jake_fink]

Hi Baggers,

"Hardware acceleration" has to be swtiched off. With some commercial dvds that might not be enough, so you may want to download a free player by VLC. This entry at wikipedia was very helpful.

J-F

 

[The Wolf]

interesting stuff

someday Maybe I'll get the screen grabs of the fictional Jake Speed books that are shown In the movie "Jake Speed". Then again I'm still trying to figure out the basics of my computer and Word programs.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[Mad Molly]

Heck, I'm so technically backward I set up the digital camera in my living room and take pictures of the television screen!

Works, though!

 

[Etienne]

Maybe we should have a ''Technically Challenged" award one of these days! Frankly, despite the confessions some have given, I would nominate ME!!! I cannot believe how dumb I am about computers!!! I should just break down and take a class or two, I guess, because I am quite mechanically adept and decent at a number of other things, but the computer remains a mystery to me in SO many ways! Do you just have to be young or what????????!!!!

 

[Twitch]

I use a freeware program called ScreenHunter version 4.0 that will do all you need www.wisdom-soft.com. Like most utilities, there is a free version and a pay for one that usually doesn't do all that much more. Do a web search for additional downlaod sites.

 

[Mojave Jack]

I tried the VideoLAN, but the quality of the video is really poor. I used the default settings, but followed the instructions here to turn off the hardware overlay. Are there some special instructions to set the video quality higher? Here's the quality that I got:

Pretty crappy.