Hiya's...

I wonder if you could advise me...

How can I play an mpg back using Media Player or Winamp, freeze the action then take a screenshot of the frozen image. I've never been able to do it?

I'm assuming the frozen picture resides in video RAM and the screen in RAM as I can't get the frozen image to appear as a saved jpg or whatever... most annoying!

Any help would be great - freeware is preferable as I've never tried it before and don't predict using it in the future. FYI I've tried MWSnap and Capturi...

Your assisance would be most welcome...

Steve

Errr, hit "print screen" and paste it into Paint Shop Pro etc. ?

Play the vid, pause it then hit the 'print screen' button. Open in image editor, crop to suit and save as an image.

you just want a screen shot - easy.

if you want the entire desktop click "print screen" (its on the keyboard somewhere, usually to the right of the F keys F1 to F12.

If you just want the contents of the video play, make sure its the active application (blue boarder on the title bar) and click either ...... ctrl - printscreen or alt - printscreen. I can never remember which, think its alt.

open up paint shop and paste into a new image - bob's your uncle you've now got the screen dump. If hte image is smaller than the original - ie you're left with white borders then ........ create a new image, resize that to smaller than your screen grab and then paste.

Good luck, do this a lot when being forced to write user installation guides at work

lol, the same advice from three people, within 3 minutes of each other.

mine took longer to write, i started first

If you press and hold down the ALT key whilst pressing the print screen it only copies the active window.

Handy if you write manuals and saves loads of cropping.

Rich

I don't know if it's just me but doing that from winamp just gives a black space when I paste it into photoshop or some paint package.


To capture frames of video I use VirtualDub .

Works fine on Winamp 5.21




Maybe try a later version

Cheers

Rich

As a trained operative of Photoshop CS - the first 7 answers are wrong using a Video File (mpg) in Winamp or Media player screen dump. I understand the concept of using screen dumps as I use them regularly for training applications, but it doesn't and has never worked with Video.

If you try it you will see what I mean... it does exactly what dave_w11 says!


[Edited on 14-7-06 by Hellfire]

I think I have sorted it - I've imported a few frames into Adobe ImageReady and done it that way... thanks for the steers!

My current version of Winamp 5.21 gives me the same results - a black screen!

Anyone with a clue why it does this?

Finally - imported to ImageReady copied frames and exported to Photoshop where I can save as jpg. As so....
Rescued attachment Hellfire_Cadwell.jpg

most of the video playing software has stuff in it to stop you nicking screenshots from it which is why you end up with a blank screen on some footage, it all depends on how it's been encoded.

quote:

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Originally posted by chockymonster
most of the video playing software has stuff in it to stop you nicking screenshots from it which is why you end up with a blank screen on some footage, it all depends on how it's been encoded.

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The reason behind this is something to do with the video card acceleration. Playing in a different layer than the one that gets captured by print screen.

That's my theory anyway.

That looks to be the case because if you untick "Allow hardware video overlay" in General Preferences -> Video print screen works fine.

I tried this and got a blank screen, until i moved around the window, and mysteriously it came into view. However if you save it it does the same thing. Im of the opinion as mentioned earlier its to do with layers.