If you want to grab an image from a movie (for example, to use as wallpaper) this feature can do it for you. It works essentially like the feature for capturing DirectX games.
Limitations
to video capture.
The video capture will work or not, depending on which video player software you're are using, and if it uses DirectX or not.
Enable Special Capture in
HyperSnap-DX 5's Capture menu or
as described in the DirectX tutorial.
Click on that item and make sure that DirectX Primary and Overlay
surfaces are turned on. Then click the OK button.
Run your video playback software, pause the movie where you want to
capture it, click the video player window title bar to make sure it's
the front window, then press the Scroll
Lock key. (That's the default HyperSnap-DX 5 Special capture
hot key. If you've changed the hot keys, use the keystroke you've set
for this function instead.)
Click on the HyperSnap-DX window and see what was captured. If you
don't see the picture there, most probably your video player software
doesn't use DirectX.
If you do see a picture within HyperSnap-DX 5's window, but it has
incorrect proportions, or is repeated several times, use the Crop
& Scale tab functions under the Capture
settings tabs. These tools will let you auto-crop each image you
capture (so that only one image remains) and it'll scale it to the
correct proportions, too. Experiment a bit to find the settings that
work best.
If video capture still doesn't work (for example, you still get a full screen capture with some solid color where the movie was because your player program does not use DirectX), you'll have to choose another video player package. HyperSnap-DX 5 won't be able to capture images from your existing package. For example, for capturing DVDs you should get a player that uses DirectX, such as PowerDVD™, SoftDVD™ or another DirectX-enabled package.
Unsupported
pixel formats.
Sometimes you may see a message within the HyperSnap-DX window that
complains about an "Unsupported Pixel Format." This means
that HyperSnap doesn't know how to decode the picture from the
DirectX overlay buffer. If this happens, check the settings and
options in your DVD player. See if you can find a setting that
disables a function that's often called Hardware
Acceleration or sometimes Optimized
Video, or something very similar to these. Re-try your
capture, it should now work.
Be sure to restore this setting again after you've finished with your
captures. Acceleration usually smooths playback during regular
"non-capture" play.
If your DVD player doesn't have such a setting, just as in the other
examples above, try another DVD player program. A good one is
PowerDVD™ from Cyberlink.
PowerDVD does have this setting, which can be turned off and on, and
several of HyperSnap-DX 5 users have confirmed that they're able to
reliably capture good images from DVDs after disabling PowerDVD's
Hardware Acceleration feature.
We
like it but...
We don't warranty that you will like PowerDVD, nor do we have an
arrangement with them whereby we suggest that our users go and buy it
and they give us "kickbacks." We mention it here only
because our users have freely mentioned to us that they've been able
to successfully capture from it. And many have
not been able to capture from other popular DVD players.
We've looked at PowerDVD, it does a great job overall, and has many
terrific options.
It produces great image quality and solid frame rate performance
given fast-enough hardware. But if you download it because of our
suggestion and then have problems, please remember this disclaimer:
we don't warranty it in any way, shape, or fashion. If you have
problems contact the vendor, Cyberlink, not us.
Thanks.