Screen captures from HD transport streams? like, collection, transport, captures

andy

I've got a bit of a collection of HD transport streams going, and I'd like to make some frame-accurate screen captures / frame grabs from them. This appears not to be one of the easier things in the world...

I don't have a MyHD or HiPix (or any other HD card) -- I am generally using VideoLAN to play the streams, but that doesn't have a screen cap feature that I know of. I know I can probably make some accurate caps if I used DVD2AVI or whatever it is that's now HDTV-aware, but that's too much like work. I've tried Womble MPEG-2 VCR, but that's turning out to be very hit-and-miss: more than 50% of the time, the frame grabbed is not the one I see in the preview window!

Any other ideas?

Hi,

you could use the Screen Cap function of your Software DVD Player, or better use the MPEG2 VDub Version by fcchandler (please look into the VDub or VDub Mod FAQ), then you can jump directly to the frame or Minute / second you want to and then move forward frame by frame until you got the one you wanted to cap...

use the Screen Cap function of your Software DVD Player [...] use the MPEG2 VDub Version by fcchandler

Thanks for your reply, but I'm afraid neither of your excellent suggestions is gonna help me that much in this case:

First of all, I'm not currently able to play HD transport streams in my software DVD player (I like WinDVD4), so I can't use that to make caps. I hear it's possible to get WinDVD to recognize TS, but unless you (or someone?) can lay out pretty clearly how to do so, I'm clueless as to how. I think I read it requires installing and registering some additional stuff, but I've never poked around quot;under the hoodquot; (so to speak), so I'd like to have a somewhat-bulletproof guide before I do.

Secondly, I've also tried the VDub MPEG-2 version, and it also refuses to open TS files. Maybe I could try converting TS to program streams, but then that's not the point: I want to be able to go -- quickly! -- from TS to screen caps, without lots of messing around. I did load some MPEG-2 into VDubM2, and I was dismayed to see that it had to take the time to parse the whole damn file before I could do anything! That is *not* how quot;regularquot; VDub works, and it's also not how the Womble MPEG-2 product works.

So far, the best thing is Womble -- but that is incredibly frustrating to use, because I almost never (even worse than when I wrote my first message) seem to be able to cap the frame I'm looking at! Grrr...

Hm...

I am sorry to hear (better read) this...

My experience with transport stream: Once installed an MPEG2 Decoder (such as Elecard) and switched into the file mode of the DVD Player, I had no problems to view the files, the same with mediaplayer, zoomplayer etc...

I hear it's possible to get WinDVD to recognize TS, but unless you (or someone?) can lay out pretty clearly how to do so, I'm clueless as to how

I think in WinDVD4 you just have to rename the file type to .trp, go to Playlist, and open them in File Mode.

- Tom

Well, I've taken the hints and advice from various kind people who have posted here, but I'm not out of the woods yet.

1. I opened GraphEdit, picked a transport stream (.TS or .TRP, doesn't matter), and wonder of wonders, it plays! Audio and video are sorta choppy, but that doesn't matter for screen caps... The Elecard demuxer is featured prominently. The audio renderer changes, depending on whether the file is TS or TRP: one uses the InterVideo version, the other uses Elecard. Didn't sound any different to me.

2. Re-tried opening a TS in ZoomPlayer, and now it plays them! Will wonders never cease?? However, it still complains that it doesn't support capturing frames of this stream, when I hit ALT+F (which is supposed to be frame capture). It also mentions that even at the best of times, I'll have to manually install the capture filter. Okaaay... but how??

3. Tried opening both .TS and .TRP files in WinDVD4 Platinum. Doesn't like .TS extensions, which I think has already been established. While it doesn't barf on the .TRP, it doesn't play it, either. Sorta sits there lookin' all black, and nothing happens when I press play. Too bad, because WinDVD definitely has a screen capture function. Whether it works for transport streams, I don't know. Yet?

4. Another perhaps-related symptom of my system's general malaise is that whenever I hop around in an MPEG-1 stream, it ends up playing at greater than usual speed when I want to just play from that point. This seems to occur in WMP, ZoomPlayer, and MPClassic. So at some point (in the past -- this has been going on for a while, but I never cared enough), I've messed something up, I guess? Any ideas as to what?

Can anyone take these four pieces of information, and perhaps divine some sort of roadmap for me to follow to unscrew my filters/codecs/etc.? Of course, I'll be more than willing to try this and that, and answer any pertinent questions. I tell ya, if I ever get this all sorted, I'll be sure to post the definitive guide to how to set this stuff up if you're an idiot in over your head. That sort of position is one I find myself with some frequency, I'm afraid...

Thanks to all!

Why not play the file in zoom and capture the frame using HypersnapDX (in background) to capture the overlay?

That's not bad! I've actually used HyperSnap before (with the logo in the top left), so I know what you're talking about.

However, would it capture the native frame size (1920 x 1080, let's say), or just the size I can fit on my screen (currently 1280 x 1024 -- maximum 1600 x 1200)?

I still feel there's got to be another way, but while my computer's codecs are all messed up, the easy way is remaining hidden and unavailable.

It would capture the frame before any re-scalling if you use quot;Enable Special Capturequot; (capture overlay) function. This would give the orig 1920x1080 frame. I have tested this and it works pretty good. Just make sure you have latest ver of Hypersnap that supports the overlay of newer graphics cards.

BTW: You need plain windvd4 to get the trp files to play for some reason. I upgraded to platinum and it stopped working. So if you have the plain ver than you can play the file and use the built-in screen capture function of the player, you probably will need to turn off hardware accell.

Whoa, baby! That's pure gold. Those are two answers that will save me hours of frustration -- thanks!

Hi there!! i've recently found screen capture tool that is an easy and fastest way to take video screen captures from Windows screen.Its quite nice tool, i have checked!!! Screen_VidShot/

I'm trying to perform the exact same task at the moment: taking a screencap of  a transport stream at full 1920*1080 resolution, but to no avail.
I'm playing the transport stream using media player classic:

- regular prt scr returns blank screencap in any editing software
- hypersnap dx gives 1280*1024 screencap (native resolution of my TFT) but saves a blank screen to .bmp
- screen vid_shot isn't suitable at all for this purpose

I'm fairly new to this matter so maybe I'm missing the obvious but my search skills are fine, however google and this forumsearch weren't able to help me.

Anyone suggestions, please?

You can TRY Mpg2Cut2 .  It will complain about opening up a TS file, but it should load.  From there, you can find the quot;save this frame to .bmpquot; choice.  Can't test it, though.  I don't have a TS file here at work.

Apparently, mpg2cut2 is only able to create so called .bmp snapshot which are essentially 2 small frames next to each other in one big .bmp. So that's not really doing the trick

Ah well, thanks for the tip, I'll keep on looking!

Ok,  I've done research and I'm totally stuck:

HOW can you get full rez screen shots out of a TS stream?? Yes, I tried Hypersnap overlay but it doesn't work (all black images)!!  Please help everybody out if you have a working method!

Thanks!!

VLC Player ---gt; Video ---gt;Snapshot

or

FFdshow ---gt; Properties ---gt; Grab

or

DGIndex ---gt; File ---gt; Save BMP


Originally Posted by jabbermacyYes, I tried Hypersnap overlay but it doesn't work (all black images)!!

Out of curiosity, did you have hardware acceleration enabled when you tried?  Perhaps you could also try that method again, but with just pure software decoding occurring.

I've finally managed to do it.

Rip files to HD using AnyDVD HD
Demux the .EVO file using EVO Demux
Drop the resulting .MPV file into Powerdvd Ultra
Grab the frames using Hypersnap

It only gets a grab at screen resolution so be sure to play full frame at full resolution.
I can only get this to work with Nvidia graphics cards, ATI x1600 says no.