How to capture a screenshot of a video

How to capture a screenshot of a video

By J.D. Lasica
Ourmedia

If you’ve gone to the trouble of making a video, you’ll want to depict it online with a representative still image from the video. You may even have a need to capture a screenshot of someone else's video and post it to your blog.

If you find that the usual method doesn't work — generally, Ctrl or Alt + Print Screen on a PC and then copying and pasting into Paint, Photoshop or a similar program, or Shift Command 3 on a Mac — try this instead:

Windows Media Player

Check which version of Windows Media Player you're using on your PC. You need to turn off Hardware Acceleration. To do this in Windows Media Player 7 and later, click Tools -> Options, go to the Performance tab, move the Hardware Acceleration slider to None, and restart Windows Media Player. Now you may make take a screenshot by pressing ALT + PRNTSCRN as usual. You can paste the screenshot into any graphics editing program, such as Microsoft's Paintbrush, and save the file. When you are done taking screenshots, you may want to move the Hardware Acceleration slider back to Full because this makes videos play smoother and look better.

To do this in Windows Media Player 6.4 to 6.10, click View -> Options and move the Hardware Acceleration slider to None.

To see a screencast of these steps by Michael Verdi of Freevlog, click the following image:

RealPlayer

For RealPlayer, you need to turn off the optimized display. Launch RealPlayer, click on View -> Preferences, go to the Performance tab, uncheck the box labeled "Use optimized video display," hit OK, and restart RealPlayer. Now you can take screenshots by pressing ALT + PRNTSCRN. You can paste the screenshot into any graphics editing program, such as Microsoft's Paintbrush, and save the file. When you are done taking screenshots, you may want to re-enable the optimized video display because this makes videos play smoother and look better.

On the Macintosh

For the Mac, with the movie in normal size (not the cmd-F full-screen size) for better quality and smaller image size, pause the movie at the frame you want, generally with the with space bar. Next, hit cmd-shift-4 (apple-shift-4, and use the upper 4, not the numeric pad). A cross will appear to let you select the part of the screen to capture. (Note: with cmd-shift-3, you capture the whole screen.) It will create a .png file on your desktop if using Mac OS 10.4 or later, or a .pdf file if using Mac OS 10.3 and earlier. You can then open and edit the file in any graphics application, such as Photoshop. You’ll want to convert it to a .jpeg before posting to the Web.

We recommend that Mac users check out Snapz Pro X from Ambrosia Software, a gem of a program that lets you capture screenshots, video snippets, screencasts — anything taking place on your screen, including short scenes from a DVD. Cost is $29 to $69.

Sources: DesiTorrents FAQ; Freevlog; Ourmedia

Notice: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, compatible with Wikipedia.

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