krizrox
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Need software suggestion - DVD/MPEG image capture
I'm looking for a utility that will allow you to capture a still image from either a DVD or MPEG file (like a single frame shot) and save it as a JPG or BMP file. Anyone know of a program or utility that will do that without a lot of muckity muck  ? Thanks
Larry Kriz www.LnLRecording.com www.myspace.com/lnlrecording Sonar PE 8.5, Samplitude Pro 11, Sonic Core Scope Professional/XTC, A16 Ultra AD/DA, Intel DG965RY MOBO, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz processor, XFX GeForce 7300 GT PCIe video card, Barracuda 750 & 320GB SATA drives, 4GB DDR Ram, Plextor DVD/CD-R burner.
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Joe Bravo
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RE: Need software suggestion - DVD/MPEG image capture
2007/07/24 17:38:53
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I think most people probably just use their DVD playing software for this since most of them come with that ability. I use a stripped down version of PowerDVD that came with my DVD burner to take DVD movie screen shots a lot of times A free way to do it is to download the free VLC Player. It's really a handy tool for a lot of things, but you can play DVD's with it and do screen captures too. You just choose File/Open Disc and select your DVD player. It takes a few seconds for the movie to start, but once it does you can move the slider at the bottom to anywhere in the movie and right click on the screen and choose "Snapshot" which will take a snap of the movie at that point and place it in your "My Pictures" folder (which I suppose you can change in the options somewhere). BTW, when you get to the navigation screen under "Open Disc" you'll see a choice to open the disc w/ menu or without. Obviously if you know what's on the movie and where you want to get to then it's faster to choose to open the main movie and bypass the menu screen.
post edited by Joe Bravo - 2007/07/24 17:52:47
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Joe Bravo
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RE: Need software suggestion - DVD/MPEG image capture
2007/07/24 17:45:49
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Okay, I just checked and you can save into any directory and as either a png or jpg. You do that in the Preferrences/Video dialog. Looks pretty easy:
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krizrox
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RE: Need software suggestion - DVD/MPEG image capture
2007/07/26 21:11:08
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Thanks Joe - I will take a look at it. On to another issue though - For reasons I can't explain - all of a sudden I am getting a small problem when I view MPEG files (doesn't matter which program I use). The color of the video starts out dark and then changes to normal. The darkness only lasts a few seconds but I find this rather annoying. I must have changed something that had an impact on this but for the life of me I can't imagine what it could be. Anyone out there maybe seen this in the past and found a solution? I suspect something like a driver or who knows what interferring with MPEG playback on my system. But just temporarily. Is there a troubleshooting tip for video playback problems like this? I am going through some old home movies and trying to dub them over to DVD which is proving to be more of a task than I originally imagined it. Almost wondering if it's worth all the effort 
Larry Kriz www.LnLRecording.com www.myspace.com/lnlrecording Sonar PE 8.5, Samplitude Pro 11, Sonic Core Scope Professional/XTC, A16 Ultra AD/DA, Intel DG965RY MOBO, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz processor, XFX GeForce 7300 GT PCIe video card, Barracuda 750 & 320GB SATA drives, 4GB DDR Ram, Plextor DVD/CD-R burner.
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Joe Bravo
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RE: Need software suggestion - DVD/MPEG image capture
2007/07/26 22:21:50
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"The color of the video starts out dark and then changes to normal. The darkness only lasts a few seconds but I find this rather annoying."
The set-top DVD player that I use on my living room TV does the same thing. It's especially noticable on B&W still photos that are held on-screen for a few seconds (like in a Ken Burns film where someone narrates over a photograph). So it's not a driver thing. I've never been sure what causes that. It's like it takes a second for the TV/computer to adjust to the movie. But I've never had that happen with over the air broadcasts (even of Burns' films on PBS) so I'm assuming that it's a shortcoming of MPEG video compression/uncompression.
"I am going through some old home movies and trying to dub them over to DVD which is proving to be more of a task than I originally imagined it. Almost wondering if it's worth all the effort."
I know what you mean. It takes forever to do anything video related and ties up your computer for hours on end. A lot of times I start long tasks, such as converting to mpeg of a long DV movie, at night before I go to bed and let it do it's thing while I'm sleeping.
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krizrox
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RE: Need software suggestion - DVD/MPEG image capture
2007/07/27 08:43:53
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Well, a quick test yesterday shed some light on this - I don't have that intermittent darkness problem on my recording partition OS. It plays the videos perfectly right from the start (I am using Windows Media Player 11). So there must be some sort of config issue or driver problem on my Office partition OS. Should be easy to diagnose. If I find out anything meaningful I'll post the solution here in case anyone else is having similar problems. Thanks again Joe.
Larry Kriz www.LnLRecording.com www.myspace.com/lnlrecording Sonar PE 8.5, Samplitude Pro 11, Sonic Core Scope Professional/XTC, A16 Ultra AD/DA, Intel DG965RY MOBO, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz processor, XFX GeForce 7300 GT PCIe video card, Barracuda 750 & 320GB SATA drives, 4GB DDR Ram, Plextor DVD/CD-R burner.
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Joe Bravo
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RE: Need software suggestion - DVD/MPEG image capture
2007/07/27 14:42:23
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Hmm ... Now you've got me wondering why my set-top player does this....
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Roflcopter
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RE: Need software suggestion - DVD/MPEG image capture
2007/07/27 17:14:07
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so I'm assuming that it's a shortcoming of MPEG video compression/uncompression. From what I read they built that gamma correction into MPEG-4 (QT 6 and up uses it too) to make sure the gamma is the same on PC and Mac (someone else complained about his vids coming off the Mac being too dark, recently IIRC - begins to make sense now, haven't had it tho). [edit] also see it *could* be used as a kind of 'watermarking' the video - interesting.... must check that out.
post edited by Roflcopter - 2007/07/27 17:22:59
I'm a perfectionist, and perfect is a skinned knee.
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Joe Bravo
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RE: Need software suggestion - DVD/MPEG image capture
2007/07/27 23:00:36
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Well, this is just something that happens for about three seconds at the beginning of a scene with a still photo. I'm trying to remember if it starts out brighter and grows darker or the other way round. I want to say that it gets darker. But it levels out okay after the intro. I'm assuming it's MPEG compression though because of not having that problem with over the air broadcasts nor with DV footage from my camcorder run through my TV set. I guess it could be my RCA DVD player though. Edited to say that this dark/light problem doesn't happen with my computer monitor and MPEG files.
post edited by Joe Bravo - 2007/07/27 23:24:10
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krizrox
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RE: Need software suggestion - DVD/MPEG image capture
2007/07/28 20:21:36
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I reinstalled my video card drivers and all is as it should be now. Why it got hosed like that in the first place is a mystery but I assume some software I installed recently created the problem. I've been playing around with different DVD movie apps - trying to find one that doesn't suck. I probably broke something in the process.
Larry Kriz www.LnLRecording.com www.myspace.com/lnlrecording Sonar PE 8.5, Samplitude Pro 11, Sonic Core Scope Professional/XTC, A16 Ultra AD/DA, Intel DG965RY MOBO, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz processor, XFX GeForce 7300 GT PCIe video card, Barracuda 750 & 320GB SATA drives, 4GB DDR Ram, Plextor DVD/CD-R burner.
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