Taking Screenshots From DVD's: Any Info How?

[ShadowTiger]

For a while, I've wanted to take some screenshots from The Critic. I have a full set of DVD's from the (amazing) series, but the thing is, I'm not quite sure how to do it.

When the DVD is running in window mode, so that MSPaint is visible, I would take a screenshot via printscreen, paste it in paint, ... but the thing is, the picture is still animated even in Paint. It seems impossible, but .. hey, try it yourself. :p It's pretty weird.

I've thought about hitting pause, to take a screenshot of a still shot, but I'm thinking that it'll probably only appear like that when the DVD is paused, not while it's shut. Has anyone here successfully taken a screenshot of a DVD?

[Carcer]

BH4... that is the most insane thing, ever. What player are you using? I used Windows Media Player, and it happened. I pressed stop and the image stopped in paint. I pressed play and it played again. The screen goes blank when you close the original application.
Have you tried pressing pause/stopp and copying it again into another paint window? Perhaps that works...
But I have never come across anything this odd. You can even draw over the window.
If you are using WMP then I'm sure that it is that.

[Rainman]

That happens with any video. I can't help you. I'd like to know how to take screenshots as well.

[fatcatfan]

Intervideo WinDVD will let you take snapshots, though I don't know the key offhand. I suspect Media Player Classic does as well. If I couldn't get anything else to work, I'd rip the DVD, decrypt it, and open it with something like VirualDub.

[theplustwo]

I've heard people say things like CTRL+Print Screen or possibly ALT or SHIFT+Print Screen work, but I've never really tried it. :shrug:

[Kairyu]

Try AnimGet.

[gdorf]

Right Click Desktop->Properties->Settings Tab->Advanced->Troubleshoot
Turn off all hardware acceleration.

Now you should be able to take your screenshots. Be sure to turn hardware acceleration back on afterward :)

[Coder GT]

Hmm, do the copy and paste thing and try using this program, which is a better/more useful solution to MS Paint.

www.gimp.org

[Orion]

It's not the imaging program that's the problem, Coder. I have the same problem with Photoshop and PSP (tried taking a screenshot of Hook). I tried the key combos and they didn't seem to work, but I'll have to try the hardware acceleration thing to see if it will help.

[Coder GT]

You said you were thinking about trying to pause it. Well try it anyway and see if it works, It's the only other thing that I can think of. There is always another thing, watch the movie on a home DVD player. And take a shot with a digital camera, upload it to the PC, and do whatever you want to do.

[gdorf]

You said you were thinking about trying to pause it. Well try it anyway and see if it works, It's the only other thing that I can think of. There is always another thing, watch the movie on a home DVD player. And take a shot with a digital camera, upload it to the PC, and do whatever you want to do.

Hitting the pause button won't help, nor will any third party programs. Turning off hardware acceleration will.

With hardware acceleration enabled the movie is rendered on your graphics card and sent straight out to the monitor. Unfortunately, when you take a screenshot, you get the data in the screen buffer before the graphics card takes over. By turning off hardware acceleration you force the software to render the video, so the screen buffer will contain the data from the movie.

[Glitch]

www.editstudio.com

A trial video editing program. I just put my movies in there full screen and then take my screenshots. No problems at all.

[AtmaWeapon]

Intervideo WinDVD will let you take snapshots, though I don't know the key offhand. I suspect Media Player Classic does as well. If I couldn't get anything else to work, I'd rip the DVD, decrypt it, and open it with something like VirualDub.This post is the winner if the hardware acceleration trick doesn't work.

From what I understand, hardware-accelerated tasks like video rendering happen at a different layer than standard drawing and Print Screen doesn't catch that layer.

I just use SnagIt to capture DirectX output :cool: