Screencap Help Please!

[hurinhouse]

Can anyone please help me figure out how to get high quality photos from a video on a dvd?

My second shooter at a wedding I shot a couple of weeks ago did not get some of the shots I asked of him. Now I have numerous great photos of the bride with her various family members (my shots) and none of the groom with his family.

The mother of the bride has the dvd from the videographer. Can I get high quality shots from that? If so - how? Like, how exactly, cuz though I'm a photographer and artist and writer, I suck at technical crap and I don't do video. I'm fairly adept at photoshop and lightroom as far as processing photos, and know some Illustrator, but that's the extent of my know-how, including what kind of extensions go with what. I have creative suite if that helps, though I've never used any of the other software in it.

Or do I need to get some different kind of source from the videographer himself? I need to get this done asap. The bride lives close so is easier to get her dvd, but if the quality will suck I need to get a hold of the videographer asap.

Thank you!

Comments

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

If you have it on DVD, you should be able to play it with VLC. And VLC has a screencap button that allows you to capture a frame.

[hurinhouse.livejournal.com]

thank you so much! i'll check it out.

[kanarek13]

I can certainly show you a few ways of getting the best quality caps without any compression - I know at least 2 easy ways to do it but both are based on the idea to let the pc/laptop do the caps instead of trying to hunt down the best frame with a button.

But the problem is - you can't get high quality from a DVD. The video is 740x480 px max and that is just tiny in comparison to an average 3000x2000 you get from a regular photo :/ If the video guy was recording with a digital cam, there is a good chance he might have it in HD, that way you could get 1920x1080 resolution which is a lot better than dvd. I've had HD screencaps printed at a photo lab and they came out awesome - after a little bit of photoshop treatment which you are familiar with :D

[hurinhouse.livejournal.com]

oh cool - I contacted the videographer last night to ask - hopefully i'll hear from him today. is this something he could email me or would that be too big?

thank you!!

[kanarek13]

It really depends on how big the file is, if he is using dropbox, he can probably pass it on to you this way... otherwise you might have to go to him with a portable drive :)

[hurinhouse.livejournal.com]

Ok he just put mts files in my dropbox. I wont be able to look at them till later but is that the format i need?

[kanarek13]

Hmmm, MTS sounds like a playlist you find on blu-rays, that is definitely the right direction. How big are the files? Would it be possible for me to look at one of the files? If you could email me one link? That way I can run it through the tools I have and see what format sits inside and what is needed to take it apart :D

[hurinhouse.livejournal.com]

Thank you - ill message you

[darya70865.livejournal.com]

Thank you!