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driven · Mar 15, 2002, 09:14 PM

Anyone know any decent apps to do screen captures from DVD movies?

Thanks in advance.

lucylawless · Mar 15, 2002, 11:44 PM

I use my digital camera. It comes out to a higher res anyway (I know, that's not really true, but it's better than the other way around).

in software, I think you're out of luck. As I understand it, for copyright reasons the dvd player sticks the video directly onto the screen, bypassing the OS or whatever other layer you need to intercept it. I remember moki saying that he had a few ideas on how to get snapz pro X to bypass this little stunt, but it would be impossible to distribute such software without the king of england busting in your door and pushing you around. or something.

tr · Mar 16, 2002, 05:13 PM

i think you'd have to rip the chapter of the DVD which has the frame that you want using DVDextractor, OSeX or other programs. then convert the m2v to mov, and then try to capture the frame in a video editing program (iMovie, FCP, for example). yeah, it's laborious, but i think that's the only way to do it...

tr

Mar 16, 2002, 08:45 PM

Originally posted by driven:
<STRONG>Anyone know any decent apps to do screen captures from DVD movies?</STRONG>

I've tried to do this also and it would never capture correctly. So I tranferred what I needed to my mini-DV camera and then imported it into iMovie and saved screen shots from there. Yes, it is kind of a pain in the ass but it worked well.

driven · Mar 16, 2002, 11:46 PM

Originally posted by <T80s>:
<STRONG>

I've tried to do this also and it would never capture correctly. So I tranferred what I needed to my mini-DV camera and then imported it into iMovie and saved screen shots from there. Yes, it is kind of a pain in the ass but it worked well.</STRONG>

How did you get the DVD into your camera without getting screwed up by the copy protection?
(Is this not an issue on cameras?)

wvx · Mar 18, 2002, 09:29 AM

I use DVDExtractor on either OS 9 or X, rip the m2v track that I want. I then use MacMPEG2Decoder to open the m2v file. You do NOT need to convert it to a quicktime movie. MacMPEG2Decoder decodes the m2v, use the slider to find the frame you want which can be difficult if you have a small screen, luckily I have a cinema so I can resize the window pretty big and get in to the frame I want. Hit transform and you'll be presented with that frame of the m2v at full 720x480. Just do a screen capture now and you'll be good to go.

starman · Mar 18, 2002, 11:36 AM

Why all this copyright BS? PowerDVD does it perfectly under Windows. I don't understand why Apple won't give us that feature. It's very annoying.

Mike

Cellery · Mar 18, 2002, 12:09 PM

If you have an nVidia graphics chipset, Snapz Pro X can take DVD screencaptures with no problem at all.

http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/utilities/snapzprox/

http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/F...ML/000667.html

They say that people with ATI chipsets are out of luck (for now), so it's definitely possible that everyone will have access to this at some point. I've used it on my DP800/GF3 and it works great. On my TiBook I go the rip/encode/capture route.

[ 03-18-2002: Message edited by: Cellery ]

ckohler · Mar 18, 2002, 12:50 PM

Another option (that doesn't require converting the video) would be to rip the track from the DVD using the methods described above, then just view the extracted video using VLC (Video Lan Client). It can view MPEG2 video. Find the frame you want to screen capture, pause the video and use your screen capture program of choice.

BTW, when Quicktime 6 is released it too will be able to view (but not edit) MPEG2 video nativly.