BigGov

Well, I finally get a DVD drive, and I have a great collection of DVD's. Before long, the thought pops into my head, "hey, if I can get a screen shot of a movie, I could have a great desktop, original, desktop background every week."

The only problem is, print screen doesn't work. I've tried looking in Google but I end up with about 10 pages of programs that cost at least $15. Does anyone know if there is a free program anywhere that can get the job done?

MahlerIsGod

If you have either WinDVD or PowerDVD (the two most popular programs, I think) than you already have the software to capture the screen. Right click on the screen while you are watching a movie find a tab labeled something like "Capture" and it should capture your screen. You will have it save it to your harddrive (the captures) and I think it will be in the form of bitmaps though I could be wrong. Hope that helps.

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"But a work of art is a conscious human effort that has to do with communication. It is that or its nothing. When an accident is applauded as a work of art, when a cult grows up around the deliciousness of inadvertent beauty, we are in the presence of the greatest decadence the West has known in its history."

Boner

PowerDVD, which I have, allows you to take a shot directly.

longjohns

yes, it has to be thru the dvd software

saltfish

I have used FlaskMPEG to grab screenshots. If you play the DVD from FlaskMPEG and then hit shift+PrntScr then it will grab the image.

Apparently it doesen't use an overlay when playing...

-SF

Snakebyt

turn off hardware acceleration and it will work

Derwood

Using either Ctl+PrintScrn or just "P" in WinDVD, all I get is a green screen when I paste the capture into Photoshop. What am I doing wrong?

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"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

Boner

WinDVD is probably using overlay, and the screen capture doesn't catch overlay images.

LNCPapa

Snakebyt hit it on the head. If you turn off hardware acceleration then you can Alt+PrnScrn to capture the active window.

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No mercy for the bandwidth impaired

Derwood

How do you turn off hardware acceleration? Sorry if I sound like a computer newbie...

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"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

ToolBag

Best damn DVD player I have ever run into!

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Jesus was a ruffies victim!

Dan 3:20

Boner

I agree. Or at least its better than WinDVD. I have WinDVD on the laptop, and PowerDVD on my desktop. It seems that WinDVD can't handle several of my DVDs (freaks out on some chapters, etc.).