screen cap/snapshot problems

[eviljenius]

i've been using videolan for a while now and haven't had a single problem with the program up until recently. i've been using vlc to take screenshots of a dvd and had great success up until last night. i'm using a custom built pc with windows xp home edition service pack 2 and all of the latest updates installed. i've taken several dozen screen caps of this particular dvd before without a single incident. now, when i use any of the 3 methods for taking a screen cap, nothing is saved. usually there's a small example of the shot taken once you hit the "snapshot" button or use the hotkeys. not a single thing happens now. i've un-installed and re-installed the program several times clearing out the cache but i'm still having the same problem. anyone have any suggestions or answers?

thanks-

[CloudStalker]

The default hotkey is Ctrl-Alt-S, also make sure to specify a directory to store the snapshots.

[eviljenius]

yeah, i did that. the hotkeys for the snapshot don't work anymore. also, it won't save the files to my directory that i specified. i did manage to find a way to force videolan to save my screen caps but it's not accurate by any means. i found that when i pause the dvd on the frame that i want to capture i have to:

1. right click on the image and select "snapshot"
or
go to "video"->"snapshot"

2. minimize videolan

3. restore it in my second monitor so that the screen "blacks out"

4. then i hit play and pause really quickly

only then does it manage to save my screen cap but it's never from the first frame that i paused on. it's only on the frame that i paused on after i quickly press play and pause after the whole black out process. i've never had this problem before but it's really starting to get on my nerves!

[CloudStalker]

What is your video output module? I heard that different output modules work differently with snapshot.

[eviljenius]

output module as in image file type? PNG...but i've been using PNG for all of my other snapshots and they've been working up until now...

[DJ]

Assuming DirectX with the Video overlay off in VLC for the second monitor the snapshot function does not work. But I believe your Print Screen function does work in this mode.

[eviljenius]

Assuming DirectX with the Video overlay off in VLC for the second monitor the snapshot function does not work.

so i should turn off the "use triple buffering for overlays" option and try again?

[CloudStalker]

Disable video overlays by going to the Preferences menu > Video and on the right side of the menu disable "Overlay video output", save and restart VLC media player.

[eviljenius]

well, for some odd reason it decided to start working all on it's own. probably just some gremlins hiding in the ram. anyway, next time it happens i'll be sure to start by disabling the video overlays before hitting you guys up for more answers. thanks for your speedy response! this is the first time i've ever had this fast of a turn around on any of my message board posts! you guys rock!

[CloudStalker]

CloudStalker is pleased...to bring up CloudStalker's post count.

And to help too.

[owlnation]

My issue is...

My snapshot mode seems to work ok. Although, I find the resulting .png image to be too small to be useful. (672x352 for widescreen)

So I tried to use print screen to capture a paused frame, then pasted it into a new image file in Photoshop. Pastes fine, looks ok, saved it as a png. Everything looks fine until I reopen the file and it's completely black.

So I guess my 1st question would can the snapshot size be increased? (the ideal solution, as print screen is slower).

And if not, what am I doing wrong with saving a print screen that's giving me the black screen?

[eviljenius]

i've tried doing the print screen thing in the past and IT DOES NOT WORK! i've done it on mac, pc...won't work on either one unless you have some sort of suplimentary program that has a screen cap option. it has something to do with the way video streams off of a disk and loads to the z buffer/ram. unfortunately i too have been looking around for a larger resolution of screen cap and i have yet to find one. the best one i've ever run across was a plug in for idvd on a mac but i can't remember what it was called.i don't think the resolution was much better than that of video lan but it looked like it captured at a higher dpi rate. either way, unless someone out there knows more about this than i do, i think we're pretty much stuck with videolan. not that that's a bad thing, just sucks to not have options.

[CloudStalker]

Well there's no way to resize the image taken from within VLC media player. If the video resolution is something like 853x480 then the snapshot taken will be 853x480. You'll have to use an external program (Photoshop, FastStone Image Viewer) to resize the image.

Note:
PNG format is lossless, which means that it will be 100% true to the source it was taken from, JPEG on the other hand is has better compression, therefore, it takes up less space.

[eviljenius]

yup-yup...that's unfortunate. i know that you can go into programs like photoshop to resize an image but they'll only be as good as their source image. you can't just make more pixels appear in your source image. you can always run them through certain programs to multiply the pixels but they use very simple algorithms. instead of seeing one square pixel, you'll see 4. enlarge something enough times and it'll look just as pixelated as if you didn't use the program at all. as for the snapshots taken at various resolutions, all of mine have come out the same while using videolan eventhough i know for a fact that some dvds have a higher res @ default size. even my super-bit dvds output at the same size! there's gotta be something wrong with that alone! anyway, all of that aside, a friend of mine was telling me about a really cheap method that's been doing lately and he claims it works. it's a digital to analog to digital conversion. sounds complicated, right? all he did was print out the image he wanted in higher res and re-scan it at a higher res. says he got clean/clear pics from this method...too cumbersome if you ask me.

[owlnation]

yup agreed.

Regardless of video size, the snapshot is always the roughly same size - i.e. too small for my uses. There's already a bit of loss with the video encoding, increasing the size of it in Photoshop makes it worse, and it's time consuming to correct.

It's frustrating because I can take print screen shots with Windows Media Player as long as I have the overlay option turned off. This works fine - I can get nice sharp images at least 1000x800 no problem this way.

Problem is:

1. VLC is great and I want to use it exclusively. WMP is the last program I want to use.

2. Since I prefer not to use it, I don't have all the codecs in place in WMP to play all the videos I have - which of course isn't an issue with VLC.

I guess this is probably a new feature request then?

Best option - have the size of snapshot controllable...

or...

Workaround, have a similar option to WMP, where the overlay (or whatever similar) is turned off so screenshots can be made with printscreen. (which actually seems a necessary feature for many people, regardless of the snapshot abilities).

[eviljenius]

hell yeah! agreed! bump that! this feature is more important to me than just about anything else in this, or any other similar program.

[CloudStalker]

Alright, I think this would be nice to have as well, although, I think I requested something like this a while ago and was told 'use an external image program for this' or something along those lines. That thread's long dead now. I've never tried the printscreen idea (considering my dislike for Windows media player ) so this is new to me.

Could the thread creator make this in the "Feature Requests" topic? You might have a better chance at getting the response you want. Oh, and add a few details as well.

[eviljenius]

...Could the thread creator make this in the "Feature Requests" topic? You might have a better chance at getting the response you want. Oh, and add a few details as well.

sounds good to me! everyone pm me with a complete list of details/features requested and i'll post it under the request thread later today...unless "owlnation" wants to take a stab at it?

[lovegod]

WHY NOT download xn view, its free
software and its great for taking
screen caps the pics you take stack up
almost in full size
at the end you just go thru the pics and
decide which to save
give it a try

[joseph5]

So I tried to use print screen to capture a paused frame, then pasted it into a new image file in Photoshop. Pastes fine, looks ok, saved it as a png. Everything looks fine until I reopen the file and it's completely black.

And if not, what am I doing wrong with saving a print screen that's giving me the black screen?

Did you try this?

Disable video overlays by going to the Preferences menu > Video and on the right side of the menu disable "Overlay video output", save and restart VLC media player.

[owlnation]

Success! Yes that does work.

I did look for that option, since I knew a similar thing worked in WMP - for some reason I missed it in VLC.

(Lovegod, I did try xnview, sorry, but found it sluggish, buggy and too complex for my simple brain.)

Anyway, that does mostly solve my problem, but I do think a scalable snapshot would be a quicker and easier option.

[anderov]

So I tried to use print screen to capture a paused frame, then pasted it into a new image file in Photoshop. Pastes fine, looks ok, saved it as a png. Everything looks fine until I reopen the file and it's completely black.

And if not, what am I doing wrong with saving a print screen that's giving me the black screen?

Did you try this?

Disable video overlays by going to the Preferences menu > Video and on the right side of the menu disable "Overlay video output", save and restart VLC media player.

Hmm.. This does work (I've been looking for scaleable screenshots too), but when I try to play dvds with "overlay" turned off, the colour is terrible and there are video echos. Anyone know how to fix this?

[DJ]

Run a DirectX diagnostic and be sure video acceleration is all the way up if it is try moving it down slightly in increments to see if this eventually helps. This is a video driver related issue and there should be no difference in quality with VLCs overlay on or off except for a slight bit more weight on your CPU.