Could some one describe how you post these wonderful clear screenshots on the site? I tried once capturing an image from a paused DVD but it came out very blurry.
Thanks!
Screen shots?
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J.J. Walters
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The best DVD player I ever had for capturing images was PowerDVD, but sadly, the computer that had that software on it is now in my nephew's bedroom in Cleveland. PowerDVD allowed me to "inch" the scene forward frame by frame so that I could make a capture of the exact moment that I wanted. I now use WinDVD, but it doesn't provide me with such fine control over where to stop the action.
Usually, when you do a screen capture, the picture it captures is the size that it was on your computer screen. This is often too big to easily upload to a web storage site, so you have to resize it so it's smaller. Also, some software only captures the picture as a bitmap (.bmp), which makes the picture file unecessarily huge. Converting it to jpeg (.jpg) format will compress it.
You can actually use Paint, the graphics software that came with Windows, to reduce the size of your screen capture image, but it's difficult to manipulate. It'll also allow you to convert images from bitmap to jpeg. It isn't the best jpeg converter, but it's good enough for posting images to a website.
(I wrote a couple of little "how-to" for my brother describing how to use Paint for basic image manipulation. They're up at Google Docs at here and here. (Please let me know if you can't see these documents, as they are supposed to be public.)
A better option for basic image manipulation (cropping, format conversion, color enhancing, red-eye reduction) is to download one of these free software packages: They won't let you do everything that Photoshop will, but they're good enough for doing cropping and/or format conversions. Best of all, they won't cost you anything. I use Irfanview, and I think it The Bomb. Best piece of software I ever put on my computer, and would be worth it even if it wasn't free. But other people speak very hightly of XNView (which works on Windows, Mac, and Linux), and Picasa.
Then, once you have your image at the size you want to post it at, you need to find an image hosting site. Flickr is one such site. I use Picture Trail. You can register at these places for free, which usually gives you an account that allows a small amount of pictures to be uploaded. (If you have a Yahoo account, then that automatically gives you a Flickr account.)
Alternatively, you can use your ISP provided web space. Your ISP usually gives you some web space so you can create a personal web page. I use my ISP webspace for hosting images, and for sharing documents with other people. BUT, to do this you have to have a way of uploading your files and images. My ISP provides a way for me to do that, but not all ISPs do. If your ISP doesn't, then you'll have to get some FTP software that'll let up upload your stuff. This is pretty complicated, and most people just use a site like Flickr.
(If you really want to try using your ISP provided space, let me know, and I can hook you up with some freeware FTP software. I am the Queen of Free Software, and my motto is "if it's for free, it's for me".)
If you get all that figured out, give us a holler, and we'll get you instructions for how to post pictures at this BB.
Usually, when you do a screen capture, the picture it captures is the size that it was on your computer screen. This is often too big to easily upload to a web storage site, so you have to resize it so it's smaller. Also, some software only captures the picture as a bitmap (.bmp), which makes the picture file unecessarily huge. Converting it to jpeg (.jpg) format will compress it.
You can actually use Paint, the graphics software that came with Windows, to reduce the size of your screen capture image, but it's difficult to manipulate. It'll also allow you to convert images from bitmap to jpeg. It isn't the best jpeg converter, but it's good enough for posting images to a website.
(I wrote a couple of little "how-to" for my brother describing how to use Paint for basic image manipulation. They're up at Google Docs at here and here. (Please let me know if you can't see these documents, as they are supposed to be public.)
A better option for basic image manipulation (cropping, format conversion, color enhancing, red-eye reduction) is to download one of these free software packages: They won't let you do everything that Photoshop will, but they're good enough for doing cropping and/or format conversions. Best of all, they won't cost you anything. I use Irfanview, and I think it The Bomb. Best piece of software I ever put on my computer, and would be worth it even if it wasn't free. But other people speak very hightly of XNView (which works on Windows, Mac, and Linux), and Picasa.
Then, once you have your image at the size you want to post it at, you need to find an image hosting site. Flickr is one such site. I use Picture Trail. You can register at these places for free, which usually gives you an account that allows a small amount of pictures to be uploaded. (If you have a Yahoo account, then that automatically gives you a Flickr account.)
Alternatively, you can use your ISP provided web space. Your ISP usually gives you some web space so you can create a personal web page. I use my ISP webspace for hosting images, and for sharing documents with other people. BUT, to do this you have to have a way of uploading your files and images. My ISP provides a way for me to do that, but not all ISPs do. If your ISP doesn't, then you'll have to get some FTP software that'll let up upload your stuff. This is pretty complicated, and most people just use a site like Flickr.
(If you really want to try using your ISP provided space, let me know, and I can hook you up with some freeware FTP software. I am the Queen of Free Software, and my motto is "if it's for free, it's for me".)
If you get all that figured out, give us a holler, and we'll get you instructions for how to post pictures at this BB.
Yes. If you have a Windows machine, it probably came with WinDVD installed on it. But it's probably a "crippleware" version that won't let you do screen captures. My current computer, for example, came with WinDVD 5 on it, but there's absolutely no way to do a screen capture with it -- even though it shows how to on the help menu.
If you can't find a way to do screen captures with it, then you can always try to just pause the playback, and then hit CNTRL + PRT SC. That captures whatever is on your screen and puts it into your clipboard. Then open up Paint and hit CNTRL + V. That'll paste the image into Paint. But I always had a lot of trouble doing that so I ended up having to buy well...first it was PowerDVD and then, on my second computer, it was WinDVD 7.
There's a very good, free, open source video player out there called VLC, but I've never been able to figure out how to do screen captures with it, either. In the end, I had to shell out some $$ for a good DVD player. (There are lots of other things to love about VLC, though, including that it plays just about any type of video file there is, without giving you mysterious messages about "missing codecs". It won't however, play the proprietary Apple formats, like Quicktime, or the iTunes video format.)
If you can't find a way to do screen captures with it, then you can always try to just pause the playback, and then hit CNTRL + PRT SC. That captures whatever is on your screen and puts it into your clipboard. Then open up Paint and hit CNTRL + V. That'll paste the image into Paint. But I always had a lot of trouble doing that so I ended up having to buy well...first it was PowerDVD and then, on my second computer, it was WinDVD 7.
There's a very good, free, open source video player out there called VLC, but I've never been able to figure out how to do screen captures with it, either. In the end, I had to shell out some $$ for a good DVD player. (There are lots of other things to love about VLC, though, including that it plays just about any type of video file there is, without giving you mysterious messages about "missing codecs". It won't however, play the proprietary Apple formats, like Quicktime, or the iTunes video format.)
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J.J. Walters
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- Posts: 4196
- Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:54 pm
- Location: Suburbia, USA
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Excellent info grapeshot. Thanks for sharing with eeyore. Sorry, I should have been a little detailed in my OP.
For MM, I use IrfanView (as the image editor) and VLC media player (for screen captures & streaming audio and video output). Both are excellent pieces of software and are completely free. And as grapeshot pointed out, one of the best things about VLC is that comes with virtually all of the different CODECS pre-installed. It will play almost any DVD.
For MM, I use IrfanView (as the image editor) and VLC media player (for screen captures & streaming audio and video output). Both are excellent pieces of software and are completely free. And as grapeshot pointed out, one of the best things about VLC is that comes with virtually all of the different CODECS pre-installed. It will play almost any DVD.
Video > Snapshot or CTRL-ALT-S or Right-Click > Snapshot will capture a screen and send it to your pre-defined Snapshot Directory.grapeshot wrote:There's a very good, free, open source video player out there called VLC, but I've never been able to figure out how to do screen captures with it, either.
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!
Thank you both! I had a crash on my computer first of the year and I don't think the Geek Squad reinstalled everything I had loaded on , software wise. It is a Dell and I know it came with several programs that I don't use often or maybe never even tried to learn. There WAS a DVD player installed but that seems to be gone. In fact there were two, one which took forever to load and I think I had PowerDVD. No where in my disks I got with the computer can I seem to find anything. I'm not TOTALLY hopeless with a computer but not an expert either. 
I loaded a trial version of PowerDVD and also when I tried to play the Notebook movie, it prompted me to install a program called InterActual. I see I have Irfanview, my DD must have installed that pretty recently cause I don't remember it being there last weekend. I'll check out VLC.
I have tried to do the screen capture as well with the control print screen but it is not very good quality.
Thanks again.
I loaded a trial version of PowerDVD and also when I tried to play the Notebook movie, it prompted me to install a program called InterActual. I see I have Irfanview, my DD must have installed that pretty recently cause I don't remember it being there last weekend. I'll check out VLC.I have tried to do the screen capture as well with the control print screen but it is not very good quality.
Thanks again.