Snapshots without subtitles

[Atroxion]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forums, so nice to meet you all.

I was just wondering whether there's a way to take snapshots (i.e. screenshots) in VLC without capturing the subtitles on display at the time. I am, of course, talking about softcoded subs, not hardcoded ones, which I'm well aware that it is not possible to remove.

I'm watching anime quite a lot, and I also review them occassionally. I therefore tend to take snapshots while I'm watching for future blog usage, but sometimes it can get annoying to constantly have to disable subtitles so they don't appear in the frame I want to capture, then re-enable the subs again, and would like to know a way around that if possible.

Thanks in advance, folks.

[Lotesdelere]

sometimes it can get annoying to constantly have to disable subtitles so they don't appear in the frame I want to capture, then re-enable the subs again

AFAIK there is actually no other way.

[Atroxion]

sometimes it can get annoying to constantly have to disable subtitles so they don't appear in the frame I want to capture, then re-enable the subs again

AFAIK there is actually no other way.

Ah, that's a real shame.

[kurzgast]

there is a workaround with key remapping for Mac users. There should be an equivalent keyremapping applicaton for windows:

• install BetterTouchTool (it's free but it's for MAC, so find a Windows key remapper!). BTT maps any shortcut, shortcut series, system functions etc. to a keystroke, mouse/touchpad gesture and even to a key on your remote.
• find out the following hotkeys of your VLC version
  • taking a snapshot (i.e. I remaped CMD+ALT+S to R inside VLC, so R is my personal Hotkey for snapshots)
  • toggle subtitle track (i.e. if there are 2 subtitle tracks: S toggles subtitle track 1 to track 2 to track 1 ....)
• go to BTT & create new shortcut action. I assigned to my Apple Remote button "menu" the follwing actions (use the "add additional actions" button):
  • S
    R
    S
• now everytime I press the "menu" button on my Apple Remote, BTT sends to VLC a:
  • "S" (toggles subtitle track 1 to 'deactivated'), then a
    "R" (takes snapshot), then a
    "S" (toggles subtitle track from 'deactivated' to track 1).
  This happens within less than a second, so you can take snapshots not containing subtitles while viewing a subtitled movie!

I think that is what you want.

An additional suggestion:

If you add the Hotkey "jump back a short step" in the 1st place of the BTT action, you can compensate your reaction time. If you passed the frame you want to capture, you have 2seconds (or so) time to press the button. VLC will jump back, disable subtitles, take snapshot, enable subtitle & continue.

I hope this helps.

[Synetech]

there is a workaround with key remapping for Mac users. There should be an equivalent keyremapping applicaton for windows.

AutoHotkey is good on Windows (and Linux).

now everytime I press the "menu" button on my Apple Remote, BTT sends to VLC a:

• "S" (toggles subtitle track 1 to 'deactivated'), then a
  "R" (takes snapshot), then a
  "S" (toggles subtitle track from 'deactivated' to track 1).

This only works for videos that have only one subtitle. For videos that have multiple subtitles (like DVDs), there's no way to encode a universal macro because there could be any number of subtitles that have to each be cycled through to get back to the one being used.

[user312423]

there is a workaround with key remapping for Mac users. There should be an equivalent keyremapping applicaton for windows.

AutoHotkey is good on Windows (and Linux).

now everytime I press the "menu" button on my Apple Remote, BTT sends to VLC a:

• "S" (toggles subtitle track 1 to 'deactivated'), then a
  "R" (takes snapshot), then a
  "S" (toggles subtitle track from 'deactivated' to track 1).

This only works for videos that have only one subtitle. For videos that have multiple subtitles (like DVDs), there's no way to encode a universal macro because there could be any number of subtitles that have to each be cycled through to get back to the one being used.

What about subtitle toggle?