Help printing captures from a dvd...

[jack123]

hi,

i want to print a series of captures from dvds in my collection, any tips on how to best go about it would be appreciated, i am total novice...

i can capture .png files from playback in vlcplayer, but is there a better way?

is there a way to improve the quality before printing? i have nero photosnap which has options for changing or 'autofixing' various aspects of the picture but i dont really know what im doing :ocx

is there a recommended type of printer/printing/paper for this? will be mainly b+w but maybe some colour...

any tips would be great, just want to get the best prints i can...

cheers

[eightshot]

i would say that mostly the answer to your questions is "depends" what are you aiming to print them for. i wouldnt expect you to need to improve them because as long as its a proper DVD then the image should be high enough res not to need this. im sorry i have no idea about nero photosnap so cant say anything at all on that. also im not sure what size VLC will take a screen snap at. so again a cant really comment.

[jack123]

hi, thanks for reply...

vlc caps are 1024x576 or 1920x800 widescreen...

the prints are for home display, prob wont want bigger than a4...what is largest realistic size i could print with decent rez?

i dont have home printer so will need to take them to a shop for printing, are there any copyright issues with doing this?

cheers

[DerekB]

are there any copyright issues with doing this?

Yes there is. If it is from a commercial DVD then it is theft to print images from it.

[eightshot]

Yes there is. If it is from a commercial DVD then it is theft to print images from it.

i thought that it would have been a case of it would only be theft if the person was selling the prints, if they are for personal use and you own the DVD then you arnt stealing, i.e. its perfectly legal to copy music of a CD and burn it to another, as long as you are the one using it and you are not passing it on in any way. anyway, if that were the case hundreds of websites such as Amazon and Play would have been taken to the cleaners by now.

i could be wrong but this is my understanding of copyright laws

1024x576 or 1920x800 is more than big enough for an A4 print you will have to either crop or rescale the image to make it fit however. easily done in PS.

[jack123]

are you sure? been reading up a bit, from what i could gather 1024 is only 87 dpi at a4, which would not be a good res??

been trialing some software that increases the pixels, hard to see on monitor what actual effect its having tho, guess ill just have to get some printed and compare, any tips would still be good tho...

i can create jpg png or bmp files, am i right thinking bmp is the best format to print?

cheers

[the_stiffmeister]

Just a quick point, even if your software is capturing the images at those resolutions, DVD video is only 720 x 576 (PAL) or 720 x 480 (NTSC) so those are the resolutions you are realistically getting.

[martinuk]

Good point the_stiffmeister about dvd resolutions being 720 x 576 (PAL) or 720 x 480 (NTSC). Well if Im wanting images from any of my customers dvd's I use a program called Blaze Media Pro this gets every frame I require.