What programs do you use for screen captures?

[ENSHealy]

Hi everyone,

I'm working my way through the series again (watched Woman on the Beach yesterday) and as I go, I'd like to make some screen captures of memorable scenes, etc. What's the best program to use to get good quality screen caps?

Thanks for your suggestions.

[Mad Kudu Buck]

I use the free video player VLC. While watching a DVD or digital copy with VLC, you can pause it, then go to "Video/Snapshot" and it'll save that frame.

[ENSHealy]

Thanks for the tip. I also have VLC and had used that feature before, but the caps I got were blurry. Thinking more on it now, it's not due to any failure in the capture function, the frame itself must have been blurry due to motion on the screen and the frame rate (24 fps?).

I played around with it some more, and if the shot on the screen is relatively still, the capture is good. In other words, the capture's only as good as the original frame, so I'll keep using VLC and just have pic my caps more carefully. I will just have to live with blurs if I really need an action shot.

Thanks again for the advice.

[Mad Kudu Buck]

Yes, when there's a lot of action, you have to be careful about which frame you pick. You can go forward frame by frame by pressing "e" when paused. Unfortunately, there is no way to go back frame by frame (?!) so if you miss it, you have to go back and find it again by going forward frame by frame.

Also, if it's an old TV show like Magnum P.I., it'll be interlaced - so for a smoother shot, de-interlace first.

I captured these with VLC, from DVD (and scaled them down to fit the forum). The action is sill a bit blurry, but that's the best I could do:

[K Hale]

Where is de-interlace on VLC? That looks like good info to have.

Also... does anyone else just do a regular screen capture, i.e. alt+ctrl+prt scn?

[Mad Kudu Buck]

Deinterlace in VLC is under menu Video/Deinterlace and Video/Deinterlace Mode - but that's in the Mac version. Apparently, different versions of VLC have different features and options.

Screen capture with alt+ctrl+prt scn only works in Windows. I suppose that could work too (as long as you're using Windows) but it might also capture on-screen display items over the video.

[ENSHealy]

how far do you have to scale down the images to fit the forum?