# Capturing a Still from a homemade DVD

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capturing-a-still-from-a-homemade-dvd/391806>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 12, 2007, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capturing-a-still-from-a-homemade-dvd/391806 "2007-02-12T03:52:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![feppytweed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/feppytweed/32/4280_2.png) [@feppytweed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/feppytweed)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capturing-a-still-from-a-homemade-dvd/391806/1 "2007-02-12T03:52:06Z")

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I have a homemade DVD that I would like to take a still frame from.

How do I go about doing this?

I have a Dell E1705 with Windows XP with Media Center.

Thanks

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**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capturing-a-still-from-a-homemade-dvd/391806/2 "2007-02-12T04:04:12Z")

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Pause the video at the scene you’re after and take a screen shot by pressing ctrl+print screen.

Then open Paint and paste the image. While in Paint you can crop and do a few other types of simple editing.

For most faithful reproduction save as .bmp; for smallest file size save as .jpg.

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**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capturing-a-still-from-a-homemade-dvd/391806/3 "2007-02-12T04:11:02Z")

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I think that should be **alt** +print screen to capture the active window.

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capturing-a-still-from-a-homemade-dvd/391806/4 "2007-02-12T08:35:50Z")

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Print Screen doesn’t always work with DVD playing software - you just get a black rectangle (I think it happens because of the way they render to the screen), but many of them now have a built-in ‘snapshot’ function hidden away in some menu or other.

If your DVD software has no such facility, you could use [VirtualDubMod](http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/) to open the video files (the big .VOB ones in the video\_ts folder on the DVD), seek the frame you want and save it as a bitmap.

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**Author:** ![DecafDonut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@DecafDonut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DecafDonut)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capturing-a-still-from-a-homemade-dvd/391806/5 "2007-02-12T16:00:03Z")

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The site [Videohelp](http://www.videohelp.com) describes a lot of tools used for video editing. You may be able to find something there.

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**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capturing-a-still-from-a-homemade-dvd/391806/6 "2007-02-12T16:32:47Z")

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[QUOTE=Patty O’Furniture]  
Then open Paint and paste the image. . . .for smallest file size save as .jpg.  
[/QUOTE]  
My experience is that the JPG generation in Paint sucks. Just MHO.