DVD screen grabs in 10.1

Oct 01, '01 11:01:19PM

Contributed by: robg

[Editor's note: Tickingtimebomb contributed a tip on DVD screen grabs, which I wasn't able to test prior to posting. When I was able to test it, I had trouble replicating the results. In my haste to correct the tip, I chose to delete the posting and replaced it with the following. That was a mistake; I should have left the original posting in place and corrected the information. Sorry for the error in judgement, and credit for the following tip goes to Tickingtimebomb! -rob.]

It IS possible to take screenshots of DVD's, at least on some Macs. I was only successful when using SnapzPro for OS X and a bit of a contrived process on a machine with an NVidia GeForce3. I could not take snapshots on an ATI-equipped G4/350. If you've got an NVidia card, however, here's how it worked for me...

To take a DVD screenshot, launch the DVD player first, and find the image in the film you wish to capture. Pause the DVD player, and make sure the window is positioned such that no Finder windows will cover any portion of the image. Now activate the Finder and launch SnapzPro (even if it's already running) from your Applications folder. Once it's launched, immediately press the SnapzPro activation keys (shift-command-3 by default, but I switched them in 10.1 to shift-command-5). Do NOT click on the DVD player again, or you will have to re-launch SnapzPro. If you've done this right, the SnapzPro window capture menu will come up, and you can then capture a region or the whole screen, and the DVD output will be included.

This worked on the three movies I tried it on, but if anyone knows of an easier method, please let us know via the comments!

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