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Technical Problem, unrelated to Civ

#1
August 26th, 2007, 14:23
Clovis Offline
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I've been trying recently to take screenshots of DVDs as they play, then save the screenshot as a JPEG file. It hasn't worked well. I pause the video, take the screenshot, paste it into MS Paint, and then save the file. When I go back to the file, it is blank. Or, if I play the video a little further, the file will reflect the current image paused on the screen. I have asked questions about it, some people have blamed PowerDVD (which is what I use) some blam Paint. I don't know what the problem is. Could the problem be the way I take screenshots? I take them by simply hitting Prnt Scrn....
"We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender."

Winston Churchill
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#2
August 26th, 2007, 17:03
blid Offline
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Powerdvd has a built-in capture function. Check here :
http://www.cyberlink.com/english/product...n_tips.jsp

This thread should be in the general forum though
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#3
August 27th, 2007, 12:14
Clovis Offline
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I don't think my version has that "configuration settings" thing.
"We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender."

Winston Churchill
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#4
August 28th, 2007, 01:57
Kylearan Offline
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Hi,

Clovis Wrote:I've been trying recently to take screenshots of DVDs as they play, then save the screenshot as a JPEG file. It hasn't worked well.[...] Could the problem be the way I take screenshots? I take them by simply hitting Prnt Scrn....
You could try the screen capture function from Irfanview or some similar program, which should be more reliable than Prnt Scrn.

Do you use Windows XP or Vista? Maybe the MPAA and Microsoft have decided to manage your rights by disallowing taking screenshots from DVDs in Vista...? rolleye

-Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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#5
August 28th, 2007, 07:42
Clovis Offline
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Kylearan Wrote:Do you use Windows XP or Vista? Maybe the MPAA and Microsoft have decided to manage your rights by disallowing taking screenshots from DVDs in Vista...? rolleye
rant lol

I use XP. I have actually figured out a way to do it using a trial version of Blaze DVD. Blaze has a screen capture function that works pretty well.
"We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender."

Winston Churchill
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#6
August 28th, 2007, 12:11
T-hawk Offline
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Kylearan Wrote:Do you use Windows XP or Vista? Maybe the MPAA and Microsoft have decided to manage your rights by disallowing taking screenshots from DVDs in Vista...? rolleye

Heh. I'd bet this is actually expected behavior from the hardware and drivers. Most modern video cards play DVDs by decoding the MPEG stream in hardware/firmware and outputting the video directly to the monitor. It never exists in the Windows software frame buffer, so it's not visible to normal Windows software tools. The solution is either to use a screenshot function that's aware of the native hardware capabilities, or to use an entirely software DVD package (which I think BlazeDVD is.)

- T-hawk, geek
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#7
August 28th, 2007, 19:04
sunrise089 Offline
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T-hawk Wrote:Heh. I'd bet this is actually expected behavior from the hardware and drivers. Most modern video cards play DVDs by decoding the MPEG stream in hardware/firmware and outputting the video directly to the monitor. It never exists in the Windows software frame buffer, so it's not visible to normal Windows software tools. The solution is either to use a screenshot function that's aware of the native hardware capabilities, or to use an entirely software DVD package (which I think BlazeDVD is.)

- T-hawk, geek
Right - while FairUse is violated like crazy by the current DRM situation, DVD output is actually working the way we want it to work. Modern GPUs' ability to decode video directly using onboard hardware is wonderful - it may seem (and be) unnecessary with "old school" DVD, but with HD-DVD or BlueRay, well the results speak for themselves. Think a top-of-the-line X6800 + 8800GTX machine gettings outperformed in HD-DVD playback by a cheap 'ol e6300 + 8600GT system because the latter has decode abilities directly on the GPU.
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