If you're using a hardware decoder card, don't
expect to get any caps unless the software that
comes with it has a capping feature.
Since most people use a software player/decoder,
I'll assume you're using one.
1) Here's the (more or less) no cost but more
difficult solution. Even software players that
have built-in capping features will not work if
the '(video) hardware acceleration' or 'use
hardware accelerator (for video)' option is
checked. Just deactivate hardware acceleration
within the player and try a screen capture again.
If that doesn't work, then you'll have to use a
specialized screen capture program that does
DirectX surfaces/overlays. Hyperionics.com has a
program called hypersnap-dx. They have an older
version available for download with free
renewable 1-week licenses. Enable special
capture in hypersnap-dx and try to capture the
dvd window. You might have to try more than once
to get the cap to show up.
2) If you have some extra cash on your credit
card and want an extremely easy solution, then I
would recommend getting PowerDVD 4.0. (Do not
use the earlier versions. 2.0 messes up captures
on true widescreen discs, while 3.0 messes up
captures on all discs.) The capture feature in
PowerDVD 4.0 is very easy to use, and as long as
you set the capture settings to capture the
current window size, you won't even need to worry
about having the right height and width ratios.
(normal dvd res is 720x480 but you actually see
something like 720x540 or 640x480 when you
actually watch the DVD; real widescreen discs are
different and a pain to cap properly but pdvd 4
makes it easy.) PowerDVD 4.0 also requires that
hardware accel be turned off for caps, but it
should be off by default.
In a nutshell, if you don't want to spend extra
cash, try turning off hardware acceleration in
the software dvd player and/or use hypersnap-dx.
If you have extra cash, get PowerDVD 4.0 and set
the capture settings for window size. PowerDVD
is definitely the easiest way by far. |
