Media Players for Screencapping
Jul. 8th, 2008 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raloriaI've been getting a lot of questions directly and indirectly about what I use to make my screencaps. I covered what I go through to create and fix my caps in my Anatomy Of A Picspam. So if you want to know about the process I go through, that's a good place to start and it really hasn't changed much.
This post, however, is going to cover the various media players I use when making caps. I've gone through different ones - rejected some and kept these few. All of them are freeware and can be easily found online. Btw, I'll cover the image editing software I use to fix the caps in another post.
Please keep in mind that I have 3 sources I cap from: DVDs, my own DVD/DVR recordings, and downloaded videos. I've found that certain media players work better with certain sources than others, but that just might be my computer, set-up, etc. One thing you learn in screencapping....there's a lot of trial and error. Also keep in mind that I'm running these on a Gateway computer running Windows Vista, with lots of memory and hard drive space. You may have different experiences running these players than I have, but I've included how much memory each of them uses, to give you some idea if they'll drain your system's resources or not.
AVS DVD Player --- http://www.avsmedia.com/DVDPlayer/index.aspx
This media player is probably my favorite. It's simple to use and you have full control over moving backwards or forwards frame by frame, which I really like. And unlike some other players, when you pause to take a screencap, you really get exactly what you see on the player. Some others will jump ahead a frame or two, but AVS is rock solid all the way, which is why I like it so much. I use AVS for capping all of the SPN DVD sets. However, I can't use it for my recordings of the episodes on my DVR, because they come out too dark and AVS has no video image controls.
Memory Usage: from 166-171K
To go backward frame by frame: "Y" key
To go forward frame by frame: "U" key
To capture a frame: F7 (in play or pause...I prefer pause because it gives me more control)
To set up the location for where the screencaps will be saved, go to Preferences>Options. Screencaps are saved as bmp files at 720 x 480 - regardless of the video's original aspect ratio.
There is no image adjustment for the video. In other words, what you see is what you get.
Another view of the player, with one of my episode recordings on it. As you can see, it's kind of dark, but it looks much better when playing the DVD sets (or any bought DVDS).
KM Player --- http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4094
If AVS is a single prop plane, then KM is the Space Shuttle. This media player has more settings and controls than a 747! I have yet to make sense of most of them, but don't let that stop you from giving it a try, because it does have some definite pluses over the other players listed here.
The one big plus is that you can adjust how big the screencaps are just by changing the size of the player window. So you have full control over the size, which is handy if, like me, you need to make your screencaps extra big and then shrink them down to improve the image quality. I use KM almost exclusively for my recordings of SPN from the TV, because I can control the image quality right in the player, which will then effect the caps.
Memory Usage: from 33-44K
The basic player window & just some of the controls:
The player with my recording of "Long Distance Call" playing:
Set up the screencap location & format under Preferences>Association/Capture - Capture tab. From there you can select a folder and format (bmp, jpg, png) for the caps.
To go forward frame by frame: "F" key
To capture a frame: Control + Alt + A (in play or pause)
Use the left & right arrow keys to go backwards & forwards by 5 seconds.
Use the "Page Up" & "Page Down" keys to move to the previous or next chapter or .vob file.
Only the (SW) Software Controls effect the video image & the screencaps. The (HW) Hardware Controls will only effect how the video is viewed in the player.
This will give you some idea of the controls for KM Player. And this is just one section!
As you can see in the list in the left panel, there's even controls for sharpening the video, which has come in handy for me. It does take quite a bit of tweaking to get it just right though.
GOM Player --- http://www.gomlab.com/eng/GMP_download.html
I used to have this player on my computer, but the last 2 times I tried to use it, it repeatedly froze to where I couldn't shut it down and had to do a restart just to clear up the problem. I've since removed the player from my system. It did work fine prior to the freezing problem however, and it's a very good player, so I'm still including it here.
GOM player is similar to KM Player because you can improve the video image quality (and in turn, the screencaps) by using the image adjustment controls. I found it worked very well at brightening up my DVR recordings of the episodes.
Note: My notes on this player are limited since I had to uninstall if from my computer before I could properly get all the info.
Memory Usage: I don't have the numbers for this, but it's not very resource heavy.
A view of player itself along with the image quality & capture controls:
To go forward frame by frame: "F" key
Use the Arrow Keys to go backwards or forwards 1 second.
To capture a frame: Control + E
Screenshots are saved in bmp or jpg formats at 720 x 480.
Image adjustment for the video effects the screencaps.
Warning: GOM will tend to jump ahead a frame when taking a screencap in pause.
Another view of Dean from "Long Distance Call" in the GOM player:
ALShow Player --- http://www.altools.com/
I haven't had a lot of time to use this player, but it's similar in style to the KM Player & GOM Player.
Memory Usage: from 44-47K
ALShow only has the main video window. All controls are accessed through the menu or Preferences.
Set up the screencap format and location under Preferences>Screen Display. You can save caps as bmp or jpg.
In Preferences you can also set up the left and right Arrow Keys to move 1 second through the video (or how many seconds you prefer).
To capture a frame: F9 (during play only)
There are brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue controls for the video and they will also effect the screencaps.
All screencaps are saved at 720 x 480 regardless of the original aspect ratio.
ALShow has a weird default numbering system for screencaps. It does it sequentially, with the set file name of Defaul_xxx. The numbering continues up to 1,000 (I think, then it quits). This will go on despite closing the player or playing video from another source or disc. To restart the numbering from zero you either have to start saving the caps into a different folder or move/remove the caps in your current folder. It will then start numbering from Defaul_000 again.
Media Player Classic --- http://www.filehippo.com/download_media_player_classic/
This is not Windows Media Player. It's actually open source software of an older version of Windows Media Player that has features WMP has never had. This is the first player I started capping with and I still use it a lot. In fact, all of my Dark Angel caps were made with MPC because the AVS DVD Player wouldn't open the Fox DVDs. Heh.
It doesn't have all the fancy controls of the other players (which can be a detriment, depending on how you like to cap), but it gets the job done. This also means it's very resource lite, which is nice to have sometimes. I usually end up using MPC to open and watch just about any video I watch on my computer. It opens fast and just plays. Simple and quick.
Memory Usage: approx. 43K
The player window:
To go forward frame by frame: Right Arrow Key
To capture a frame: F5 Key (in pause or play)
No image adjustment for the video.
You set up the location & format for the screencaps by playing a DVD or video, pausing, then select File>Save Image As... Once this is done all your caps will be saved to that location & in that format until you change it.
Screencaps are saved in either bmp or jpg.
Bought DVDs will be capped in their respective aspect ratio.
(16:9) Widescreen --> 853 x 480
(4:3) Full Screen --> 720 x 540
However, DVR recorded DVDS will not retain their original aspect ratio when capped. If they are widescreen the caps will come out at 720 x 540.
Sam from "Long Distance Call" in Media Player Classic:
VLC Player --- http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
I don't really have any notes for this one because I only have it on the Mac out of necessity. It's the only thing I can use to make screencaps on the Mac. It's not my top choice, that's for sure. You can only make caps while in play and all the caps end up with a green line along the right edge. Btw, I've also noted the green line on my caps from the KM Player, but to a lesser degree and that's only happened since using it in Vista - it wasn't a problem on my XP computer. VLC also won't cap at anything bigger than 853 x 480 (and only in png or jpg....no bmp...bummer!). One way I get around this is to make the media window as big as I can get and then pause the video and take a selected screencapture of the video by hand with SnapNDrag. It works, but it's tedious. Doing that to an entire episode is grueling.
The video image and the caps themselves are effected by the advanced video controls, so darkened video can be fixed. I've also found that it makes nice, sharp screencaps, with a lot of detail. So it does have a few pluses.
Note: I also have VLC on my computer, but it doesn't work very well there (for me). Maybe it doesn't like Vista. It's just about the only media player out there that works on Windows & Mac.
There you have it!
A few final notes....I always save my caps as bmp images when I have that option (as most of these players do). It retains the highest quality that way. I then resize to the correct aspect ratio, fix and adjust brightness, contrast, color, and sharpness in one of my numerous Image Editing Programs. As I said before, those will be in the next post at another time in the near future. If you look at the Anatomy Of A Picspam, you'll see that no screencap comes out perfect from a media player. They all need that extra tweaking to look their best.
I've also learned that screencaps tend to be a bit darker than what you see in the media player window, so if you can adjust the video quality, take this into account and try to turn the brightness up a little higher than you think it should be. Again, tweaking and testing on your own system is the best test. I'm just offering guidelines here.
I hope this answers all your questions. If not, please ask me anything I didn't cover or anything you need more info. about.
Happy Screencapping & Good Luck! :D
This post, however, is going to cover the various media players I use when making caps. I've gone through different ones - rejected some and kept these few. All of them are freeware and can be easily found online. Btw, I'll cover the image editing software I use to fix the caps in another post.
Please keep in mind that I have 3 sources I cap from: DVDs, my own DVD/DVR recordings, and downloaded videos. I've found that certain media players work better with certain sources than others, but that just might be my computer, set-up, etc. One thing you learn in screencapping....there's a lot of trial and error. Also keep in mind that I'm running these on a Gateway computer running Windows Vista, with lots of memory and hard drive space. You may have different experiences running these players than I have, but I've included how much memory each of them uses, to give you some idea if they'll drain your system's resources or not.
AVS DVD Player --- http://www.avsmedia.com/DVDPlayer/index.aspx
This media player is probably my favorite. It's simple to use and you have full control over moving backwards or forwards frame by frame, which I really like. And unlike some other players, when you pause to take a screencap, you really get exactly what you see on the player. Some others will jump ahead a frame or two, but AVS is rock solid all the way, which is why I like it so much. I use AVS for capping all of the SPN DVD sets. However, I can't use it for my recordings of the episodes on my DVR, because they come out too dark and AVS has no video image controls.
Memory Usage: from 166-171K
To go backward frame by frame: "Y" key
To go forward frame by frame: "U" key
To capture a frame: F7 (in play or pause...I prefer pause because it gives me more control)
To set up the location for where the screencaps will be saved, go to Preferences>Options. Screencaps are saved as bmp files at 720 x 480 - regardless of the video's original aspect ratio.
There is no image adjustment for the video. In other words, what you see is what you get.
Another view of the player, with one of my episode recordings on it. As you can see, it's kind of dark, but it looks much better when playing the DVD sets (or any bought DVDS).
KM Player --- http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4094
If AVS is a single prop plane, then KM is the Space Shuttle. This media player has more settings and controls than a 747! I have yet to make sense of most of them, but don't let that stop you from giving it a try, because it does have some definite pluses over the other players listed here.
The one big plus is that you can adjust how big the screencaps are just by changing the size of the player window. So you have full control over the size, which is handy if, like me, you need to make your screencaps extra big and then shrink them down to improve the image quality. I use KM almost exclusively for my recordings of SPN from the TV, because I can control the image quality right in the player, which will then effect the caps.
Memory Usage: from 33-44K
The basic player window & just some of the controls:
The player with my recording of "Long Distance Call" playing:
Set up the screencap location & format under Preferences>Association/Capture - Capture tab. From there you can select a folder and format (bmp, jpg, png) for the caps.
To go forward frame by frame: "F" key
To capture a frame: Control + Alt + A (in play or pause)
Use the left & right arrow keys to go backwards & forwards by 5 seconds.
Use the "Page Up" & "Page Down" keys to move to the previous or next chapter or .vob file.
Only the (SW) Software Controls effect the video image & the screencaps. The (HW) Hardware Controls will only effect how the video is viewed in the player.
This will give you some idea of the controls for KM Player. And this is just one section!
As you can see in the list in the left panel, there's even controls for sharpening the video, which has come in handy for me. It does take quite a bit of tweaking to get it just right though.
GOM Player --- http://www.gomlab.com/eng/GMP_download.html
I used to have this player on my computer, but the last 2 times I tried to use it, it repeatedly froze to where I couldn't shut it down and had to do a restart just to clear up the problem. I've since removed the player from my system. It did work fine prior to the freezing problem however, and it's a very good player, so I'm still including it here.
GOM player is similar to KM Player because you can improve the video image quality (and in turn, the screencaps) by using the image adjustment controls. I found it worked very well at brightening up my DVR recordings of the episodes.
Note: My notes on this player are limited since I had to uninstall if from my computer before I could properly get all the info.
Memory Usage: I don't have the numbers for this, but it's not very resource heavy.
A view of player itself along with the image quality & capture controls:
To go forward frame by frame: "F" key
Use the Arrow Keys to go backwards or forwards 1 second.
To capture a frame: Control + E
Screenshots are saved in bmp or jpg formats at 720 x 480.
Image adjustment for the video effects the screencaps.
Warning: GOM will tend to jump ahead a frame when taking a screencap in pause.
Another view of Dean from "Long Distance Call" in the GOM player:
ALShow Player --- http://www.altools.com/
I haven't had a lot of time to use this player, but it's similar in style to the KM Player & GOM Player.
Memory Usage: from 44-47K
ALShow only has the main video window. All controls are accessed through the menu or Preferences.
Set up the screencap format and location under Preferences>Screen Display. You can save caps as bmp or jpg.
In Preferences you can also set up the left and right Arrow Keys to move 1 second through the video (or how many seconds you prefer).
To capture a frame: F9 (during play only)
There are brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue controls for the video and they will also effect the screencaps.
All screencaps are saved at 720 x 480 regardless of the original aspect ratio.
ALShow has a weird default numbering system for screencaps. It does it sequentially, with the set file name of Defaul_xxx. The numbering continues up to 1,000 (I think, then it quits). This will go on despite closing the player or playing video from another source or disc. To restart the numbering from zero you either have to start saving the caps into a different folder or move/remove the caps in your current folder. It will then start numbering from Defaul_000 again.
Media Player Classic --- http://www.filehippo.com/download_media_player_classic/
This is not Windows Media Player. It's actually open source software of an older version of Windows Media Player that has features WMP has never had. This is the first player I started capping with and I still use it a lot. In fact, all of my Dark Angel caps were made with MPC because the AVS DVD Player wouldn't open the Fox DVDs. Heh.
It doesn't have all the fancy controls of the other players (which can be a detriment, depending on how you like to cap), but it gets the job done. This also means it's very resource lite, which is nice to have sometimes. I usually end up using MPC to open and watch just about any video I watch on my computer. It opens fast and just plays. Simple and quick.
Memory Usage: approx. 43K
The player window:
To go forward frame by frame: Right Arrow Key
To capture a frame: F5 Key (in pause or play)
No image adjustment for the video.
You set up the location & format for the screencaps by playing a DVD or video, pausing, then select File>Save Image As... Once this is done all your caps will be saved to that location & in that format until you change it.
Screencaps are saved in either bmp or jpg.
Bought DVDs will be capped in their respective aspect ratio.
(16:9) Widescreen --> 853 x 480
(4:3) Full Screen --> 720 x 540
However, DVR recorded DVDS will not retain their original aspect ratio when capped. If they are widescreen the caps will come out at 720 x 540.
Sam from "Long Distance Call" in Media Player Classic:
VLC Player --- http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
I don't really have any notes for this one because I only have it on the Mac out of necessity. It's the only thing I can use to make screencaps on the Mac. It's not my top choice, that's for sure. You can only make caps while in play and all the caps end up with a green line along the right edge. Btw, I've also noted the green line on my caps from the KM Player, but to a lesser degree and that's only happened since using it in Vista - it wasn't a problem on my XP computer. VLC also won't cap at anything bigger than 853 x 480 (and only in png or jpg....no bmp...bummer!). One way I get around this is to make the media window as big as I can get and then pause the video and take a selected screencapture of the video by hand with SnapNDrag. It works, but it's tedious. Doing that to an entire episode is grueling.
The video image and the caps themselves are effected by the advanced video controls, so darkened video can be fixed. I've also found that it makes nice, sharp screencaps, with a lot of detail. So it does have a few pluses.
Note: I also have VLC on my computer, but it doesn't work very well there (for me). Maybe it doesn't like Vista. It's just about the only media player out there that works on Windows & Mac.
There you have it!
A few final notes....I always save my caps as bmp images when I have that option (as most of these players do). It retains the highest quality that way. I then resize to the correct aspect ratio, fix and adjust brightness, contrast, color, and sharpness in one of my numerous Image Editing Programs. As I said before, those will be in the next post at another time in the near future. If you look at the Anatomy Of A Picspam, you'll see that no screencap comes out perfect from a media player. They all need that extra tweaking to look their best.
I've also learned that screencaps tend to be a bit darker than what you see in the media player window, so if you can adjust the video quality, take this into account and try to turn the brightness up a little higher than you think it should be. Again, tweaking and testing on your own system is the best test. I'm just offering guidelines here.
I hope this answers all your questions. If not, please ask me anything I didn't cover or anything you need more info. about.
Happy Screencapping & Good Luck! :D
