Importing Video Stills
Into Your Computer From DVDs

CD-ROM drives in computers make it insanely easy to rip a music track from a CD and copy it onto a hard drive or iPod. The music industry and the U.S. Congress are busily constructing legal and technological barriers to this copying, but once recorded music switched from analog formats (LPs, cassettes) to a digital one (the CD and then the MP3 format) it opened a virtual Pandora's box of duplication and sampling (that is, the excerpting of bits of audio).

The digitization of video and the introduction of DVD drives into computers have had the same effect on video as CD drives did on audio. Now, with a minimum of effort, one can grab a frame from a DVD.

DVD Frame Grabs in Windows

Much DVD-playing software for Windows allows you to snag a frame, but Microsoft's built-in Media Player does not. Fortunately, there are many no-cost or low-cost DVD players out there that will. One piece of DVD-playing software, Cyberlink PowerDVD, even provides an online, frame-grab tutorial, which they refer to as "screen capture."

Our current favorite, free DVD player is VideoLAN's VLC media player, which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Using VLC, I could've grabbed my Road to Bali frame by simply clicking the "snapshot" icon in the interface, or pressing its keyboard shortcut, CTRL-ALT-S. Another option is to pause the video and then choose Snapshot from the Video menu.

Regardless of whether the user clicks a button, uses the keyboard, or makes a menu choice, the displayed frame is saved as an image file (JPEG or PNG format), or, optionally, you can copy it to the clipboard and then paste it into another application, such as a word processor.

In addition to simple grabs with DVD-playing software, there is at least one program that is dedicated to making grabs of an enhanced quality: Topaz Moment. In fact, Topaz Moment (couldn't they think of a better name?) can generate images up to four times larger than those that you get with a program such as VLC. Its secret is that it grabs several frames at once -- a couple on either side of the frame you want -- and then blends those frames together to generate a high-quality image.

For example, here is the movie, Follow That Bird, as viewed in Topaz Moment's viewer:

The frame capture icon is highlighted. Click it and you've grabbed your image. As a test, I created a grab of this split-screen shot that is twice as large as the original. Click the thumbnail below to see the full image (which is 1440 x 1079 pixels):

Here's another example, grabbed from a DVD of The Tick (click to enlarge):

Topaz Moment also has options to alter the contrast and color and reduce the "noise" in an image. And it works with various video file formats in addition to DVDs. It's the best program we've found that is dedicated to making high-quality frame grabs; and, at $39.99, it's also reasonably priced (as of October 2007).

DVD Frame Grabs on Macs

Like Microsoft, Apple has blocked frame grabbing in its built-in DVD player. Fortunately, the free VLC media player works fine on Mac OS X. Using VLC, I could've grabbed my Road to Bali frame by simply clicking the "snapshot" icon in the interface, or pressing its keyboard shortcut, OPTION-COMMAND-S. Another option is to pause the video and then choose Snapshot from the Video menu.

Regardless of whether the user clicks a button, uses the keyboard, or makes a menu choice, the displayed frame is saved as an image file (JPEG or PNG format), or, optionally, you can copy it to the clipboard and then paste it into another application, such as a word processor.

However, if you'd rather stick with official Mac software for frame grabs, Julia Lesage, an editor of the media-studies journal, Jump Cut, provides these step-by-step instructions:

1. Play your DVD using "Normal Size" (keystroke: command+1).
2. Find the spot you want to grab an image of. Then pause the DVD image on the player.
3. Create a screen photo with the Mac program called "Grab," which is an application that comes with System X.
4. Use "Selection" in the menu bar and drag across the area you want an image of. (Another way to do this without Grab is just to use the keystroke command: command+shift+4. You get a crosshairs cursor to use to make a selection.)
5. These images are saved to your desktop (or copied to the clipboard) in the PDF format.
   • The PDF format is virtually useless in this context. You'll need to use image-editing software (see page 5) to convert the file to the TIFF or JPEG format.

Also, DVD Capture, a helper application for the Apple DVD Player, will automate some of this process.

If you get the error message, "Screen grabs are unavailable during DVD playback": Try the Screenshot Plus widget.