Hi all,

I need to get good-quality screencaps for some shots from Bad Girls. So I have the DVDs (and copies); I don't want to convert them again. I tried Virtual DubMod, but it wants to convert the VOB files it sees to Mpeg2, which seems unnecessary (also confusing, as it converts each VOB file individually, & they start in the middle of an episode, so frame numbering is wrong). I have WinDVD, but it seems useless for a real step or frame-by-frame feature. VLC doesn't do frame-by-frame since it's made for packets.

What other solutions are there, please? Painless is always good. :) I live in hope, since I KNOW there are people out there who must have solved this particular problem!

Many thanks as always, e

Hi ekny,

I use Power DVD to watch DVDs on my computer and with this viewer it is possible to create frame-by-frame screen captures without any problems. If it would help you and if you would let me know what Bad Girls’ scenes you are interested in I can take the screen captures and send them to you by email.

b

Hi Lady MacB, nice to hear from you! I really appreciate the offer but it's a pretty extensive project, I need a program that will allow me to scan for the 'best' shot from specific scenes.... I had PowerDVD on my old computer, but it's version (3.0) & won't work on the new computer, which is running XP. Some kind of .dll conflict I killed 3 hours trying to fix last night.

Can you tell me what version you're using, please?

And specifically: it not only allows you to advance or go back 1 frame at a time, but tells you the frame number you're on??

Thanks, e

I use PowerDVD version 3.0 it runs on Windows XP and it works properly.

PowerDVD doesn't tell you the number of a frame it only allows you to advance or go back one frame.

Sorry, but I don't know a program that does do the things you require.

b

Thanks B, maybe I'll try to fix that DLL problem after all. Sigh. This is such an easy thing, or seems like it should be! --e

Well, I got some version of Power DVD & it does exactly as LadyMacB said, but I don't see why it's so bloody hard to find a prog that will show what frame one's on! I mean you'd think I was asking the damn software to remotely-power satellites. How hard is this to implement?!

Major frustrating.

On the plus side, Power DVD does everything else reasonably well. On the minus, it's a major resource-hog. The Quest Goes On... --e

I use a nice little Freeware program called ImageGrab
LINK

Yep, tried it, but it didn't do what I wanted! Thanks tho... :) --e

Hiya ekny,

Most of your better video editing programs should be able to give you screencaps at specific time intervals-- I've mostly used Ulead's Video Studio (currently version 10), so I know that one will do it. Early versions used to have an option to export a specific clip to a series of jpgs, but it seems that's not an option any more. (It didn't do proper still images anyway, just broke up the video into its component jpgs, most of which had that "streaked" look you get from interframes.) As I'm sure you've realized, if you're doing a lot of screencaps, it's an awful lot of work, so you'd be better off using something that will do batch captures (I'm very big on batch programs).

The only program I know of that's specifically designed to do this is Topaz Moment PE, which is meant for production houses and so is both hiddeously expensive and slower than a bureaucrat on valium, at least on anything less than a high-end video workstation. It does a really nice job though-- it can do 4x enlarged stills with very little degradation, so it might be worth getting the trial version if you want to do some high-res stills here & there.

There's a small, free program called Rad Video Tools that will do a series of still image caps from avi, mpg, and other popular formats, but not DVD. The interface isn't exactly user-friendly either-- you have to specify the range of frames to export, for one thing. But it still might save time in the long run if you're doing a ton of screencaps.

I've got a friend who's a professional videographer-- I'll ask him if he's got any ideas. (He'll probably just suggest you get a Mac!) Have you tried asking on any video forums? That might be your best bet.

Btw, VOB files *are* mpeg2, so I'm a little puzzled by what Virtual DubMod thinks it's doing!

Good luck,
~On the Drift

Excellent, very helpful! Many thanks, I'll try to check out some of those, I was thinking of Ulead. That I can get on torrent sites; the high-end stuff, unless I luck out, I expect not to find hanging around at all, sadly. But I'll definitely look. Topaz sounds tempting but prob won't work for me: the size of my files is going to be extremely limited for this initial project as it's going to be posted on the web, and of course I only have a normal computer at home, not a workstation. :) Still, nice to know about.

I don't know what's up with VDubMod either, it was very frustrating, because it did everything else so quickly, & is a small, fast little program. I did post the question in the videohelp forum, but no one's answered so far: unusual, but then I guess the question's a little odd, too, perhaps.

I am currently working with a screwy, intermediate-type of solution. Well, it might well be the best I can do given my budget & resources.

Ok, so it's a little insane, but whatever.

I found a freeware program, very small & stable, called Mpeg Streamclip, which converts to Mpeg-2. It does this in about half an hour per episode on my computer, which is impressive (at least I think so given what I've seen happen with other progs I tried--can you say nightmare?) So I gave up & started converting again though I swore up & down I wasn't going to... but it was so fast I figure what the hey. It does this & syncs up the sound perfectly, so far as I can see, which is better than impressive--none of the other progs I've tried can do this worth a damn, you have to use 6 different aps & have the patience of job to manage to understand any of that stuff. I don't. :D It is heavy on system resources--I got a gig of RAM on my refurb & am runing a 64x dual-core processor, 3800+, & can't see doing it w/much less--but so what. It will do almost everything else I wanted: give exact times, export frame in TIFF, PNG, or JPG, has step feature. Its settings are pretty complicated & will require I dummy up on a lot of complicated stuff for anything more exotic than what I'm doing, but the brief manual is at least clear & in English. It doesn't give exact frame info, but I can use V DubMod for that if I decide I can't live without it; since I'm converting again, frame numbers won't be a perfect match to the originals no matter how careful I am, so there's probably no point & I'll have to let go of that bit of anal-compulsiveness.

So really this whole endeavor is Therapeutic, you see. :eek

Oddly--I don't know enough to say why--the caps from the Mpegs seem, to me, to be better quality--richer saturation & feel less, I don't know, grainy (even though the ones I have are not, not really, but I don't know how else to describe it) than the ones from the originals. Which I totally don't get, so it's possible I've already spent way too much time with this & am Officially Seeing Things. Am trying to be consistent with how I compare images but in the end I have to trust my poor eyes, unreliable as they may be. Tho it does have settings enabling you to target screenshots intended for computer-graphics rather than media, so that may be contributing.

The manual claims some copies are actually better-quality than the original, which I find hard to believe but maybe it's really that wonderful. The tech-specs on that stuff are too obscure for me to evaluate. It can do batch stuff, fix timecode breaks, & make changes in gamma, brightness, etc for frame export. --e

I'd forgotten about Mpeg Streamclip-- I'm glad it's working for you. I knew it could do batch conversions, but I didn't know it could do batch screencaps. It would probably choke on my home machine-- I've been piecing together components for a while now into the Frankencomputer so I could afford a laptop, but this thing is so slow it's starting to get on my nerves, especially compared to my work system. I've been wanting to get back into doing video stuff, but figured I'd wait until I upgrade this old clunker.

No, you think? ;)

Actually, that does sound plausible... also depending on how it compares & composits the surrounding 'frames' into still images, which is how Topaz does such a good job.

I did email my friend btw, but I know he's really busy so it might take him a couple days to get back to me.

Just wanted to clarify: it can't do batch clips, just conversions. But that's ok for what I want. :) Let me know if your friend gets back to you, & thanks to you both for helping out!

I definitely appreciate the angst of homebuild... my last computer was components, & it did work well for many, many years, so I guess I can't fault it now it's in a heap on the floor. But what a relief to have something up to speed! It'll be worth the trouble, hang in there...! :)