Technical question - Screencaps from DVD

[ffutures]

My main computer's graphics hardware (HP Pavilion PC running XP with 1.8 Ghz Athlon processor and S3 Graphics Pro3 DDR on the motherboard) doesn't seem to support screencaps from DVD or DirectX files. Neither does the other PC (400 Mhz Celeron, Windows 98 with ATI graphics on the motherboard). Currently I'm playing them using Windows Media Player on the XP box, some sort of DVD player program on the 98 machine. On both machines DVDs won't play if I tell the software I have hardware acceleration, but things play all right without it.

Is there any software, preferably free or cheap, that can get screencaps without supporting hardware, or should I be looking at getting another graphics card? If so, what?

Thanks!

Comments

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

You're definitely looking at software rather than hardware. I think there's a Windows version of MPlayer these days, which is what I use to take DVD screencaps.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks - any idea where I might find it, other than a search on mplayer?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Never mind - found it!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

First guest rang my bell just as it finished downloading and I've only just got into the file.

Unfortunately the Windows version is VERY beta - command line and key driven, no GUI, and it appears no screen capture unless I'm missing something.

[saranjeuhal.livejournal.com]

There's a gui you can download and use with MPlayer. You can get it from http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php (http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php), or specifically http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/mplayer-gui.zip (http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/mplayer-gui.zip).

There's also the free version of BS Player, which you can download from http://www.bsplayer.org/index.php?p=download (http://www.bsplayer.org/index.php?p=download). This is an excellent program which I've used myself for capturing. The non-free version is obviously more advanced, but this will let you see if you like it.

[mr-wombat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, once you have DVD playing software installed WMplayer will happily use the codecs to play DVDs. WM player 9.1 or higher does it for me.
There are special screencapture programs out there but any I've looked at all demand money before they'll stop watermarking the screen captures with big ugly captions.

[corone.livejournal.com]

I found that the version of Power DVD I got had a screen cap option.
but I've seen other versions that didn't.