[shuttertalk]

I'm thinking of a little project which involves taking screenshots from DVDs. Can anyone recommend some DVD player software which will take screenshots from a DVD movie and automatically save it to an image file with a unique filename? Adjustable parameters (e.g. screenshot size, folder saved to, filename convention) would be a plus.

I need to take quite a few, so something that would need as little intervention as possible would be great. Using a separate screen capture software, then putting it into photoshop and saving, would be too much trouble...

[dave]

a program that can do this is bsplayer......however it is not made for playing dvd's, it is a divx and xvid movie player.

This means that you need to load the individual *.vob files into the program as it will not just play the dvd straight off like a program like windvd.

However it is free and not intended for dvd's so can't really complain......it will do the job

[shuttertalk]

Spent the last hour looking... seems like it's not as straightforward that I first imagined! The only program which seems to play DVDs on my laptop is WinDVD, which came with it. There's supposed to be a screen capture function, but I can't, for the life of me, get it to work.

After some researching, apparently DVD playback usually goes straight to the graphics card, which is why if you use a normal screen capture utility, the video portion will be plain black. You need a player/capture program which is capable of intercepting the stream.

Grr...

[Kombisaurus]

Hey ST,
I think most DVD playing software should allow you to switch off the "video overlay" type stuff and render the video the old-fashioned way, using software.

In this case, your normal screen grab utilities should work fine, but you'll probably find it makes the CPU work a lot harder to play the DVD (like playing a game using software rendering).

Check out the config settings for WinDVD..

Cheers
Adrian

[shuttertalk]

Thanks Kombi. I managed to get a hold of Ulead DVD Player (from my dvd writer that I installed on my desktop pc) and it works a treat. No need to switch off video overlay etc. - it just captures screenshots straight out.

It saves them as BMP files in a directory (sequential naming), and I just use Irfanview to batch convert to jpegs.

Thanks everyone!

[dpw9272]

also look at frameshots... that's what i use to get photos from our dance concerts... they allow u to download the software but it places a watermark on ur captured pix... but at least u get to see whether or not it'll suit ur needs

[t0ny]

VLC can and its free and open source!
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
while playing the dvd right click on the video and click snapshot. It should be saved under my pictures.

[alastair_hm]

I think the PowerDVD Pro player allows you to take screen shots.
http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_1_ENU.html

[Petographer]

I've tried most of the programs mentioned and have found DivX to be the best going. At least pro is anyway. When playing a movie it does allow to save a screen shot but the one feature I like most is "Seek to a time". Type a time where you want to go and viola. It will also pick up where you left off after you have closed out the program.

[Toad]

Hey Colin! So where is the screen shot of my poster from The 4400 that you promised me??

[Petographer]

Hey Colin! So where is the screen shot of my poster from The 4400 that you promised me??

Oh man! I forgot about that. I now have an assignment to work on. I can't remember the episode.:/

[Toad]

The episode is called "Suffer the Children".

[Petographer]

The episode is called "Suffer the Children".

Thanks Bud.