Advice needed on geeky computer stuff

[Fulghum]

I could use some advice on some computer related stuff from those of you who are more dialed in than I.

I would like to do a frame capture from DVD to use as an avatar.

(Stratman, you may appreciate this, as well as you ladies who think Doyle is a cutie).

I'd like to grab a frame from the In The Flesh DVD to post as my next avatar.

The frame I'm looking at is the close up of Doyle Bramhall in the song Dogs, after the line

"And it's to late to loose the weight you used to need to throw around....So have a good drown, as you go down...all alone".

If you have the DVD you know what I'm talking about when he sings "alone", not a real "kodak moment" but just too comical to pass up.

Any advice on the procedure would be apperciated. Yes, I do have a DVD RAM in my system.

Thanks, Dave

[Dr Cheese]

Do you have any video capture software installed on your pc? I don't think you'll get very far without it. But I may be wrong.

[Fulghum]

Yes I do have vid capture, I have a complete video editing suite on this damn thing. Just gotta figure out how to make it go "zoom". (Not a techie term, I know).

[Dr Cheese]

This may sound stupid and I'm really not taking the piss but have you read the online help/manual utility that usually gets installed with these packages?
It may be something as simple as pressing F10 at the critical moment or something....





... But probably not!

[Fulghum]

No worries Doc.. I have looked over the manual, even took the class the place I bought it from offered. Actually I know my way around the video edit stuff pretty well. (Actually I make short ski, mountain bike, kayaking videos for fun).

I just need to figure out how to pull the frame off the DVD, You may have given me the answer unknowingly, I had not considered using the video software on my system, I was thinking of using photoshop.

I'll give it a shot, what's the worst that could happen...... complete system meltdown and imprisonment for copywright infrigement????

[englar]

yep

[stratman]

Hope it works out, Fulg---I wanna see "our boy" with his Elvis/Billy Idol lip-curl on the board.

[Fulghum]

Ahhh, I see someone is familiar with "The Look".....

[Not Now John]

I have tried to use video capture with my DVD ROM before, and its never worked. I shalk it up to some kind of piracy/copy protection.

[Fulghum]

I think you may be right John. I'm having a helluva time with this. I'll keep trying, but hope fades.

[mad yannis]

There IS at least ONE system. It's complicated though. You need to rip the DVD with a DiVX program (the program you need in order to copy DVD films in CD rom) and encode it in .mpeg format (NOT .avi) With the movie encoded in .mpeg you can work with a CorelDraw Photopaint program and do the frame capture and whatever you want. The process of ripping/encoding is pretty long though.

[Fulghum]

Thanks Yannis.... I think I'll just stick with "Big Dave"

[Dazed&Confused]

Nope you don't need to rip it with DivX. I don't know what dvd software you use, but whatever it is it will have a screenshot button. Try Prt Sc on your keyboard, then paste this onto your video editing program. Now usually it's as simple with that with screenshots, but because this is a moving image you have to have a certain type of program (unfortunatly i've forgotten the technical name) which allows you to capture a single frame from a video, because if you try to paste it into any old image program (MS Paint, photoshop) you will not get a single picture, but a real time video showing your dvd (if it's still running) or a blank screen if it's not. So if your video editing program has a feature for this (which i suppose it should since it for video editing), it should work something like that ^top^, if not try and search on google or whatever for something that does, and if you can't find anything ask me and i will ask somebody 'in the know'.