Taking Snapshots of LBT

landbeforetimelover · **on:** July 25, 2008, 02:52:30 PM

Have you ever wondered how to take great quality snapshots of a movie? You can take snapshots in many ways, the easiest being by using vlc media player. The snapshots taken by vlc media player are of very low quality and don't look very good. Compare snapshots taken in vlc with the snapshots taken in the way I'm about to show you.

VLC:
http://67.171.50.184:8081/Images/vlc.jpg

My Way:
http://67.171.50.184:8081/Images/walking%20background.jpg

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You will see a significant difference in quality in my way. Here are the needed materials:

1. Magic DVD Ripper
2. Video Snapshot Genius
3. The DVDs you want to take snapshots of
4. At least 5gb of free space on your hard drive for temporarily storing the videos

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STEP 1: Download the needed programs and get the DVDs ready. Free up some hard disk space if necessary.

STEP 2: Pop the DVD into the drive and launch magic DVD ripper. Once inside, do a FULL BACKUP without menus and subtitles. DO NOT just rip the DVD. That makes a horrible quality 700mb avi file

STEP 3: Make sure you have the new video files in a good place that's easy to get to. Launch Video Snapshot Genius and modify the following settings: Increase JPEG quality to 100, adjust the resolution of the images to 1600X1067 or another good sized resolution.

STEP 4: Start taking snapshots. The F10 key is a shortcut to take a snapshot. You usually have to take 100 shots or more if you want to get the snapshot just right. You can delete the ones you don't need later on.

STEP 5: To share these photos, you may use photobucket however be advised that they will resize your images. If I really need to show a large image, I use my personal server so the images won't get resized. If you know another place that won't resize your images, use them.

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VLC media player is still very useful. I use it when I don't need to worry about quality so much like when I make avatars. The avatar I have now was made from several snapshots I made with VLC, but if you want a decent quality image for using as a background and such, you need to use something else besides VLC.

Clawandfang · **Reply #1 on:** July 25, 2008, 03:01:14 PM

I use Topaz Moment personally. As it says on the Website:

Quote

It is specifically designed to easily and efficiently capture video frames, significantly increase their quality and resolution, and turn unclean video frames into quality mega-pixel prints in seconds.

And using is quite easy...your way, although undoubtably good, seems a little roundabout. I don't know. It's probably far cheaper; I only picked up this program on a free giveaway day, not sure how much it is normally.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #2 on:** July 25, 2008, 03:10:04 PM

Yeah, I tried that. The snapshots it takes are of pretty bad quality. I'd rather use VLC because the quality of it's snapshots are only a little bit worse. <_<

Lillefot · **Reply #3 on:** July 25, 2008, 03:17:57 PM

Well, I'm using VLC. Can't hurt to try though.

Clawandfang · **Reply #4 on:** July 25, 2008, 03:41:35 PM

Really? I'm quite happy with the quality Topaz Moment gives: http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk295/C...80412195037.jpg

Nimrod · **Reply #5 on:** July 25, 2008, 04:22:32 PM

I am making all my screenshots with VLC, and I am okay with them

I don¥t need better quality. They are fine, not to blurry.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #6 on:** July 25, 2008, 04:37:04 PM

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Really? I'm quite happy with the quality Topaz Moment gives

Maybe it's the quality of your monitor that makes you think that snapshot looks good, but that's really blurry.

Kor · **Reply #7 on:** July 25, 2008, 05:41:55 PM

I just use a freeware program called media player classic. But I have to use it on pc2 which has vista on it. If I try to even watch a dvd on this pc with it it freezes though it can play every other video file. Annoying having to use pc2 but that is all I have.

I tried using vcl on this pc but it crashes if I try to take a snapshot so no idea if they would be good or bad.

Petrie. · **Reply #8 on:** July 26, 2008, 06:10:36 PM

Why not just pop the dvd in, boot up The KMPlayer and hit Ctrl+A for snapshots?

Easiest thing you can do in my book. If you really want precesion on the frame captured, DVD Decrypter and the original VOB dvd standard files have no quality loss either.

That workaround, while I'm sure its good, is a lot of work and a lot of harddrive wear and tear. Not all of us have desktops where its actually cheap to replace a busted drive. ^^

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #9 on:** July 26, 2008, 08:19:40 PM

KM player takes crappy quality snapshots. I mean, I can see why you'd think they're good Petrie because of your low resolution, but most people work with resolutions higher than 1024X768.

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Not all of us have desktops where its actually cheap to replace a busted drive.

Hey, it ain't cheap for me either Petrie. I have 1tb drives in my machines. They're over $350 to replace.

Petrie. · **Reply #10 on:** July 27, 2008, 07:00:04 AM

Needless to remember, LBT isn't always a high quality source either. The original release still has a ton of grain that no high quality capture will get rid of. The sequels (probably 10 onward) may have digital transfers (would be a guess).

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #11 on:** July 27, 2008, 11:23:56 AM

You can get pretty high quality images of LBT 5 and onward, but LBT 8 and onward make the best snapshots. A high quality image of LBT 1 through LBT 4 still looks awful. -_-

Petrie. · **Reply #12 on:** July 27, 2008, 12:38:46 PM

My point exactly...it actually can look worse the higher resolution you go when DVD standard is 720 x 480.