Just wondering, how would I go about capturing a few seconds of film from a DVD on my PC and then turn it into an animated GIF file to use as an avatar on another site?
If it has to be done as a screen capture, you will need advanced screen capture software like SnagIt. Another angle would be to rip the DVD, take the .vob file that has the section you want to grab and rename it to a .mpg file and then run it through an application like Virtual Dub where you can export a portion of a video as a series of bitmap images. Then take those .bmp images into a graphics editor and convert them to gifs and then take the gifs into an animator. Presto! It sounds more complicated than it is if you already have the tools necessary. If you’ve never worked with digital video before, then it will take you a while to get it done, but it isn’t all that hard. I think there are video editors out there that will export animated gifs, but I don’t have one handy so I can’t verify that for sure.