Darknet: How to capture a screenshot of a movie I’ve always wanted to be able to take screen shots of the muisical performances that I record on MCE and subsequently encode to .mp3 to build new live quality audio content in my library. The problem is that when you try to take a screenshot in WMP of the playback it blacks out the video. An actual screenshot from the performance makes for great album art.
Looks like JD Lasica has found a way around this via Desi Torrents.
“For Windows Media Player, you have to disable Hardware Acceleration. You can do this in Windows Media Player 6.4 and later by clicking on View -> Options and moving the Hardware Acceleration slider to None. You can do this in Windows Media Player 7 by clicking on Tools -> Options, going to the Performance tab, moving the Hardware Acceleration slider to None, and restarting Windows Media Player. Now you may make take a screenshot by pressing the [ALT + PRNTSCRN] combination. You can paste this screenshot into any graphics editing program (e.g. MS Paintbrush) and save the file. When you are done taking screenshots, you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider back to Full because this makes videos play smoother and look better.”
I’ll have to test this out.
Update: Yep, it works.
Sheryl Crow SNL
And then if you want to have some fun and use a little creativity, here you go, instant Sheryl Crow, Live on Saturday Night Live, album art.
Sheryl Crow: Live on Saturday Night!
Thomas, you can do it without turning off hardware acceleration by disabling overlay mode (in favor of VMR-9).
…or you can just capture from within MCE, which uses VMR-9 exclusively.
that didn’t work for me, unfortunately. I downloaded fraps though, and that seems to work well in interactual player and others(although not as well in wmp, but that doesn’t matter!)
(www.fraps.com) I still have no idea why disabling hardware acceleration didn’t work for me in wmp 10. /raises eyebrow/
Yes I have win mp 10 and disabaling hardware acceleration did not work for me neither, I cannot find where to disable overlay mode though 🙁
this did not work for me either.
The screenshot pastes into Paint Shop Pro but it literally moves around in the frame – will only save a completely black photo.
What I ended up doing was pausing on the frame I wanted and then using a digital camera to photo the screen. Ack! Not my 1st preference for sure.
Turning off overlay definitely works:
Tools -> Options -> Performance -> Advanced -> Untick Use Overlays
… And just like that, you’ve solved a problem that’s bugged me for years:) Plus it was dead simple. In depth blog, bold photos… terrific stuff here! Thanks for posting the help.