Impossible Screenshot in Windows:

E

emaN resU

New Member
Im unable to take screenshot of any video format in any media player.
Well, not "everything" to say that i really wold have some testing to do.

Anyways. I can not take screnshot of:
.avi
.ogg
(Any Realmedia video)

I have tested those videos in: RealAudio/Winamp/WindowsMediaPlayer/VLC
They all play fine, but i can not take screenshots of them. If i do. There is only a black screen where the video still should have been.

Example:
 
How are you taking screen shots? Try using print screen button on your keyboard. To use it and take a screen shot of only that window press "alt + printscreen" Then copy and paste it into a picture editor like MSpaint or photoshop.
 
I use printscreen, and i have tried some "ScreenCapture" programs.
I can take Screenshots. Though it is only the video screen witch wil not work.
 
I use printscreen, and i have tried some "ScreenCapture" programs.
I can take Screenshots. Though it is only the video screen witch wil not work.
 
Why do you need to take a screenshot of a video anyway, kind of defeats the purpose of a video :P . You could always just pause it and the try and take the screenshot, or break it down frame by frame and use that. Last option would to be converting the video format and then taking the screenshot.
 
The reason you cannot get them on a screenshot is that many video applications use an overlay. All that is on the "desktop" is a black rectangle and that's what you capture with a screenshot.

The way the projection works is that the video application puts the video directly on to the screen and anywhere the "desktop" is black, the picture appears. By design it puts the video where the black rectangle is. If you run such a video application and open a jpeg over the top, anywhere the jpeg is black, the video will show through.

You have to use the video application concerned (if it has capture capability like a pc tv) or some other technique. I don't know if FRAPS will do it because it won't run on my pc.

Added later: In some apps like WMP you can turn off the overlay and then capture with a normal screenshot.

Starman*
 
Last edited:
I HAD the same problem today.. and the way i took a screenshot was through windows media player...

but first you need to do this to the player:
go to TOOLS then OPTIONS then PERFORMANCE and click ADVANCED
now unckeck USE OVERLAYS on both video acc. and DVD

now oyu can go back and take a screen shot with cntrl + print screen
 
4W4K3 said:
A+ advise, I was having this problem as well and couldn't remember how to fix it. Thanks guys!
Click to expand...
No problem, even though nini was the only one who had the solution and starman was the first one to realize why, but ya no problem. :D
 
Another way to fix it is to turn off acceleration in the display preferences pane. How it works is that the video is sent directly to the GPU, and that displays it so it's faster, and it doesn't eat up the CPU usage. The Print Screen function uses whatever is being drawn in the CPU, therefore the video doesn't show up. I think this is similar to the overlay technology, IIRC.
 
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