The Energon Pub

Ever since the start of Transformers Animated, my desire to start up the screen captures on Seibertron.com has once again been rekindled. The reason I have put off doing screen captures for the past four years is because I knew the technology I was using was no longer sufficient. The best quality screen captures I could take with the Dazzle device I bought in 2002 was 320x240. It seemed it was always a struggle to do screen captures with that device ... the default colors never seemed to match up with the video and the positioning of the video always had to be adjusted plus the video always lagged behind the audio (which wasn't a big deal since I was only doing screen captures and not video capture). I knew there had to be something better out there so I decided to put screen captures aside until I found that device.

On Saturday, I decided to go to Best Buy to find a device that would enable me to hook up a multimedia device (such as a DVD player, my Dish Network Satellite box or a Camcorder) to my computer and enable me to take high quality screen captures that were at least 640x480. I thought I found the device that I needed (link below) which I purchased over the Dazzle device that's currently available because Pinnacle now owns Dazzle I believe.

http://www.amazon.com/Pinnacle-8230-100 ... 99&sr=8-11

I went home, hooked up the new device to my satellite box, was amazed at the quality of the video and proceeded to look into how I could take screen captures (or "frame grabs" as the Pinnacle device referred to it as). I figured it out but the problem was that it would only take one screen capture at a time and then to save it, I had to go through the whole typical Windows dialogue box asking me where I want to save the file, the file name and the file type (jpeg, bmp, tiff, etc). That process was extremely time consuming and very inefficient. The image quality was beautiful ... the images were very crisp, matched the colors on my DLP television perfectly and were over 700 pixels wide by default.

On Sunday, I took the device back to Best Buy with a sense of defeat. I was bummed that I wasn't able to post screen captures of Megatron Rising this weekend for all of you to enjoy.

I turn now to all of you in hopes that you guys can help me find a device that will take screen captures. Here is a list of requirments that I need:

* I think it should be an actual exterior device that I hook up to my machine (most likely via USB). I do not want a stand alone software program that requires me to play the video directly on my laptop.
* This exterior device should enable me to hook up my DVD player, Dish Network Satellite box or a Camcorder via audio / video wires or the S-Component outlet (I think that's what it's called).
* It should enable me to take high quality screen captures that are at least 640x480.
* It needs to have a bulk saving feature. The previous Dazzle device that I bought in 2002 used to enable me to tell the device to take a screen capture every second or to take up to 999 screen captures as fast as the processor would allow it. I used this latter feature and then just deleted duplicate screen captures so that I could let the screen captures happen automatically instead of me clicking the screen capture button every time I saw something that I liked. This automated functionality enabled me to work on other stuff while my computer was taking screen captures.
* The video quality needs to be perfect. With all of the technology out there, I shouldn't have to do much to the default settings. The Pinnacle device that I had purchased on Saturday proved to me that there have been significant improvements to this technology over the past 6 years.

Now I just need to find a screen capture device. I'm hoping that one of you have a device that can assist me in finding a device that will enable me to once again take screen captures.

(NM, totally misread the post...)

so the "print screen" key and youtube is insufficient?
or did i misunderstand too?

shadowsfm wrote:so the "print screen" key and youtube is insufficient?
or did i misunderstand too?

Yes, it's extremely insufficient and extremely inefficient. There are tools that will allow a lot of this to be automated and to take high quality images from the original video source, which is my ultimate goal ... like I used to do with the screen captures that are currently on the website.

The biggest obstacle I have is that the Dazzle device that I bought back in 2002 will only take 320x240 at the highest quality setting when it's automated. It'll take 640x480 but the image quality just looks like I increased the size from a 320x240, which is not my desired standard.

If you guys aren't familiar with the screen captures on this website, check out the screen cap galleries at http://seibertron.com/cartoons/images.php?cartoon_id=1

Those are all pre-2004.

After talking to a few friends of mine today, it sounds like I need to get an external device that hooks up to my USB (which is what the Pinnacle and Dazzle products do) but then use a 3rd party "frame grabber" program. Any suggestions for a device that will enable me to hook up an external DVD player or Satellite box to my computer with the AV wires or the S-Wire?

Raymond T. wrote:Wouldn't it be easier to buy a DVD-recorder? And then grab the pictures from the dvd-disc directly on your computer? And with DVD-viewers like PowerDVD you can grab as many pictures you want, at any size you want, without external devices.

Maybe that's ultimately what I need. I have PowerDVD but I'm not sure how to take screen captures.

Seibertron wrote:

Raymond T. wrote:Wouldn't it be easier to buy a DVD-recorder? And then grab the pictures from the dvd-disc directly on your computer? And with DVD-viewers like PowerDVD you can grab as many pictures you want, at any size you want, without external devices.

Maybe that's ultimately what I need. I have PowerDVD but I'm not sure how to take screen captures.

Oh that couldn't be easier.

To set things up, run the program without playing anything. Right-click and go to Configuration. Select the player tab, click on Advanced..., then click the Snapshot tab. Here you can select to save it to what ever directory on your computer you want your grabs to go, what format you want your pictures to be in (JPG, BMP, GIF...) and what size you want your pictures to be. Then save by clicking okay.

Then start up the dvd, and then its just a matter of tapping your C-key to capture the picture on your screen! To get a specific frame, pauze play (spacebar) and then you stepback one frame by tapping the E-key or stepping forward one frame by tapping the T-key!

That is all!

Raymond T. wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Raymond T. wrote:Wouldn't it be easier to buy a DVD-recorder? And then grab the pictures from the dvd-disc directly on your computer? And with DVD-viewers like PowerDVD you can grab as many pictures you want, at any size you want, without external devices.

Maybe that's ultimately what I need. I have PowerDVD but I'm not sure how to take screen captures.

Oh that couldn't be easier.

To set things up, run the program without playing anything. Right-click and go to Configuration. Select the player tab, click on Advanced..., then click the Snapshot tab. Here you can select to save it to what ever directory on your computer you want your grabs to go, what format you want your pictures to be in (JPG, BMP, GIF...) and what size you want your pictures to be. Then save by clicking okay.

Then start up the dvd, and then its just a matter of tapping your C-key to capture the picture on your screen! To get a specific frame, pauze play (spacebar) and then you stepback one frame by tapping the E-key or stepping forward one frame by tapping the T-key!

That is all!

Are we talking about the same PowerDVD program from CyberLink? When I open up the program and right mouse click, it doesn't do anything. Might you have a different version than me? Mine is officially called the CyberLink PowerDVD DX.

Seibertron wrote:Are we talking about the same PowerDVD program from CyberLink? When I open up the program and right mouse click, it doesn't do anything. Might you have a different version than me? Mine is officially called the CyberLink PowerDVD DX.

Yeah, it is by CyberLink, but I've never heard of a DX version. The newest version is 8.0, and then there is PowerDVD Ultra that was especially develloped for Blue-Ray and HD. I must admit I only have 7.3, but as far as I know they should operate the same. But the importaint thing is that you open your configuration screen. Best way to do this is while you see the PowerDVD splash screen, as PowerDVD has been known not to save your settings when you do this while a dvd/video is playing.

Yeah, you don't really need a seperate device, just dvd software with a good screencap function, and/or a good screencap program.

I use Gadwin Printscreen for screen capture, and Windvd 4 for dvd capture. Media Player Classic can also capture images(file->save image).

Yesterday I stitched together these imagecaps from a downloaded avi of Megatron rising(click for full res).