Snapshot \ Frame Capture Tutorial


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langes01x

-dono
Sempai
This is meant to be a simple tutorial for everyone that has been having trouble capturing frames (pictures) out of video.

For Media Player Classic:
First make sure under options -> output that you have VMR9 (renderless), DIRECTX 9, render video in 3D, and VMR9 mixer mode selected.
Next find the frame you want to get.
Once you have found the frame click file -> save image and save the picture where ever you want it (as a JPEG preferably).
**It has been suggested that Haali renderer gives a better picture however this may not work on all systems

For VLC:
First make sure under preferences -> video you have the snapshot directory set and format set to JPG (unless you actually want PNG).
Next find the frame you want to get.
Once you have found the frame click video -> snapshot and it will save the picture to the chosen directory. (note: VLC always saved to C:\username\Pictures for me even when I set the directory)

For Windows Media Player:
With older versions of WMP (ie WMP 9):
Go to Tools -> Options
In Options, select the Performance Tab
Click on the Advanced Button
Uncheck Use Overlays and click Ok
Then continue with the PrintScreen method.

With WMP 11:
Under options -> performance unselect Display Full-screen Controls.
Then continue with the PrintScreen method.

CTRL-I may allow you to directly save a screenshot from WMP (not on WMP 11).
Also make sure that the fullscreen controls are hidden and that your mouse is not on the screen when capturing using this method.

PrintScreen key:
First you open the video in any media player. Then find the frame you want and make the image fullscreen (usually Alt-Enter in most media players). While the video is paused and fullscreen press PrintScreen.
Now open your image editor with a new blank image. Hit Ctrl-V (Paste). A picture of the video should appear in your image editor. You can then edit the image if needed or save the picture as anything that your editor can save.
(Confirmed it works with Photoshop and Paint)

If you have a better tutorial than any of the above or one that uses a different media player feel free to post it in this topic.

Also to any mods that may come across this thread: it would be great if you could pin this thread so that it does not get lost since it may be helpful to a lot of users but will most likely not get many replies.

Edit: I have removed all my posts about Haali vs VMR and added a suggestion to the tutorial that users can use Haali with MPC also.
 
Here is an alternative way of getting screenshots using the freeware video editor VirtualDub. This method is good for quickly stepping through your video from scene to scene looking for interesting images.

Note: this method works for AVI files but not for other formats or H264.
Download VirtualDub from http://virtualdub.org

You also need an image editor or viewer to paste the screenshots into. A very easy program to use for this is the freeware image viewer Irfanview, from http://irfanview.com

Here is a scrrenshot of VirtualDub in use:
virtualdub2zq1.jpg


1. Open your video in VirtualDub.
Note: You will see two copies of the video, just ignore the second window.
You may also get a warning dialogue about VBR audio, ignore this too.

2. Find the scene you want.
The quickest way to move about the video is by holding down SHIFT and using the left/right cursor keys (alternatively use the keyframe buttons — see screenshot). This jumps you from keyframe to keyframe. Since each scene usually starts with a keyframe, this takes you instantly from scene to scene. (You can also use the slider bar of course but the keyboard method is very nice for skipping between points of interest without looking at lots of intervening frames.)

3. Choose the exact frame.
Having found the scene you want, use normal left/right cursor keys (or the buttons shown in the screeenshot) to step one frame at a time.

4. Press CTRL+1 (that's the digit one, in case it's not clear)
The picture is now on your clipboard and you can paste it into any image editor (see previous post). However we're going to use Irfanview for the saving step.

5. Open Irfanview and press CTRL+V
The image is now in your irfanview window.
You might want to resize it or do other adjustments at this stage, e.g. sharpening or cropping (to crop, drag out rectangle with mouse and press CTRL+Y.)

6. To save this image, press CTRL+S and ENTER. (If the file type doesn't show as JPEG, choose it from the drop-down list before pressing ENTER. (Of course you can use any other type too.) By default the image will be called "Clipboard01.jpg"

7. Leave Irfanview open, as you can keep pasting more screen shots into the same file window, and when you save them, Irfanview will number them consecutively. (If you close Irfanview between shots, the numbering restarts at 01.)

It is also possible to use VirtualDub to save screenshots directly, but it's a bit more fiddly since you have to select a range of frames to save first using the range selection keys, even if you only want 1 image, otherwise VirtualDub will save EVERY frame! However if you want to try this option, look under "File" > "Save image sequence..." I will probably talk about this in another post on saving sets of images.
 
QUOTE (langes01x @ Sep 28 2007, 05:17 PM)For Media Player Classic:
First make sure under options -> output that you have VMR9 (renderless), DIRECTX 9, render video in 3D, and VMR9 mixer mode selected.
Next find the frame you want to get.
Once you have found the frame click file -> save image and save the picture where ever you want it (as a JPEG preferably).

Bad idea. VMR does not render the picture correctly.

Better solution is to either use Haali Renderer to be able to save images directly through MPC. Or use FFDShow's frame capturing to get a snapshot instead.

How to do so (use this method for Zoomplayer as well)

Comparisons of VMR7/9 to Haali's Video Renderer:
VMR9 - 01
Haali - 01
VMR7 - 01
Haali - 02

Good job with the rest of the guide though and the same goes for Hiroyuki for posting a Virtualdub guide and not a Virtualdubmod guide. ;)
 
QUOTE (langes01x @ Sep 29 2007, 02:23 PM)
I don't know what sort of crazy horrible VMR renderer you are using but I have personally compared both renderers and don't see a difference between them (and have screenshots to prove it).

It is however possible that you have turned on an effect in Haali that will attempt to interpolate between pixels thus giving a superior image. I wouldn't call that cheating but it isn't really a fair comparison if you give one renderer an obvious advantage.

Here are the pics I used to test the renderers:
VMR9 (renderless)

Haali


VMR9 (renderless)

Haali

*These last two are slightly different pictures for some odd reason even though they are the same frame*

I ran them through an image comparison program and eyeballed them as well. They are 100% the same (with the exception of the last two and even those are 99%).

Not that any of this matters since you can use Haali's renderer and still take screenshots of the video the exact same way as I described.

So I ran those pics through Subtract(clip1,clip2) and there was no difference at all. Which means they're the same renderer. How did you try to switch them?

Also I didn't GUARANTEE VMR9/7 sucks. It's just known to break more often than any other renderer. Not entirely its fault but more of the fault of GPU drivers. Most GPU driver makers don't do a good job supporting VMR correctly.

Also those 2 pairs of pics are CCCP copy fodder. We've archived them. The first 2 are old ones from TheFluff. The last 2 are recent (few days old) from TheFluff.

Here's results on my PC:

VMR9 (with your settings)
VMR7
Haali (note this encode is anamorphic and Haali saves it as the original size)

As usual VMR9 gives it a greenish tint and used TV levels for some reason. VMR7 was more or less the same as VMR9. Haali used TV levels as well actually, nevermind that braino. The dark blur is just part of VMR7/9 ugly rendering. This was tested on a 7800GT with 163.44 drivers.

EDIT: I personally think I should leave these posts for those who want to know why Haali can be a better choice than VMR9/7 and want to see evidence, but I won't continue the argument.

hamasusuke: I don't see the difference in the two anyhow. I even experimented, and nothing's different between the two.
 
Hey guys, just to let you know, this is only a tutorial on how to at least get screen shots from a certain something. So if you would please, only suggest ways to take screen shots, not which is better. Some of the settings may not be available to all users.
 
QUOTE (Harukalover @ Sep 29 2007, 02:41 PM) hamasusuke: I don't see the difference in the two anyhow. I even experimented, and nothing's different between the two.
Did you not tell us to stop?
wink.gif


Well anyway, you're likely doing the same as langes01x. And are not switching correctly.

Even if the renderers handled the stream close to the same in quality. There _would_ be some kind of difference. Especially when VMR is notorious for it's greenish tint on all GPU's/drivers. So if there's no difference at all then you're doing it wrong.

Probably changing the renderer during playback without restarting the player. Which won't work. (it can't be instantly changed)

Hamasusuke: Still seeing no changes. But let's leave it that way.

EDIT: Save image --> compare. Really, it's impossible for their not to be a difference. Good or bad. And stop editing my posts and post yourself instead kthx.
 
QUOTE (Harukalover @ Sep 29 2007, 09:06 PM)Well anyway, you're likely doing the same as langes01x. And are not switching correctly.
You were right that I did not close and reopen MPC... at first. I later went back and retried Haali with MPC and got a pure black video. This then lead to me having to uninstall and reinstall CCCP (my version was a little old anyways) so that Haali would work. Once I got CCCP back running I tested Haali and VMR again (correctly this time) which then lead me to the conclusion that it does make a difference however the difference is so small that it is almost nill. (note that my laptop uses an Intel 950 graphics chipset and Vista and that I had Haali on the TV setting because the PC setting made the picture look a little funny)

And that the last thing that I will say about Haali/VMR.

Back to the topic:
Does anyone know if/how zoomplayer does screenshots? If so we are missing a tutorial for it (not that we absolutely need it but some people may like it better)
 
/me thinks some people here need to fix their eyes or at least train them better... (since I haven't heard of one GPU or driver yet that does not hue shift to green with VMR7/9)

But anyway, I already pointed out how to do so in Zoomplayer. Just read that link and steal from it if you want.

QUOTE (langes01x @ Sep 30 2007, 09:30 PM)(not that we absolutely need it but some people may like it better)
Personally, I don't see how anyone can stand any other player but Zoomplayer (no DVD support in standard though).

But to each his own...
 
How about using Windows Movie Maker. Actually, I have accidentally using it for capturing picture in video. Is it good as other mention ?
 
As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't really matter. I've never had a problem in any of my media players with just clicking the Prt Scr button and pasting into paint. It comes out the same resolution and color as what I see on screen so whatever shift may occur doesn't.
Back when I used to use VLC, I found that sometimes if you used prt scr the image in paint would render with the video - but saving the image, and then closing/reopening paint with the media player closed would let you edit the image however you want without the active rendering problem (which I never really understood).

I don't see why you need a separate program just to take a snapshot...
 
QUOTE (Cool Nitro @ Jan 16 2008, 09:02 PM)How about using Windows Movie Maker. Actually, I have accidentally using it for capturing picture in video. Is it good as other mention ?
Movie Maker is made by Microsoft so it has its flaws. Plus who would want to take the time to import the video into Movie Maker when you can just play the video in any player and capture the picture from there. Plus since it is a Microsoft product it doesn't support things like MKV, H264, etc natively(or at least I think it doesn't) so you would have to have a separate codec pack installed anyways. (That is if the codec pack would even work with Movie Maker at all)

Basically go get CCCP if you don't have it already and use one of the included players(Zoomplayer, Media Player Classic) to capture your pictures. This way you get exactly what you want at the resolution of the video itself(i.e. no upscaling, compacting) with none of the hassle.
 
Hmm, I guess i going to stick with Media Player Classic then. No wonder I mess up a bit, it all about setting.Thank very much for information.

Also maybe I going to be a bit adventurous trying all the setting available to see which setting look better. What I need then my very clear eye to see the different.
 
QUOTE (dchaosblade @ Jan 16 2008, 10:28 PM)As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't really matter. I've never had a problem in any of my media players with just clicking the Prt Scr button and pasting into paint. It comes out the same resolution and color as what I see on screen so whatever shift may occur doesn't.
Back when I used to use VLC, I found that sometimes if you used prt scr the image in paint would render with the video - but saving the image, and then closing/reopening paint with the media player closed would let you edit the image however you want without the active rendering problem (which I never really understood).

I don't see why you need a separate program just to take a snapshot...
Print screen can't capture output from Overlay Mixer. That's why people have trouble with print screen. (CCCP defaults to Overlay Mixer since it's the most compatible non-broken renderer)

QUOTE (Cool Nitro @ Jan 17 2008, 12:17 AM)
Also maybe I going to be a bit adventurous trying all the setting available to see which setting look better. What I need then my very clear eye to see the different.
Haali's Renderer almost always gives the best picture. Or use the frame capture ability from ffdshow for the most accurate image.

But note that both of those options will give you the original frame resolution. So if you are screenshotting from an anamorphic show you will need to resize later for correct aspect ratio.
 
I would Sujest the Zoom Player That comes with the cccp software. All you have to do is change the folder where the picture gets saved. All though it saves it to the size of the file resolution wich is bad sometimes. forgot where the thing is in options though; I'll re-edit this post once i have a chance, latez.
 
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