Mark Cappelletty

Looking For a DVD Screen Capture Program For Mac

Hi. I'm looking for a good DVD Screen Capture program for the Macintosh. I've got a 17" iMac and want to take some screen-grabs, but am unsure how to go about this. I also want to snag some sound samples from a DVD for a private Christmas compilation. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks much.

Tony Aguila

I use Snapz Pro X for screen captures, not only for DVDs but for application and Finder windows. I believe the OS X installer discs come with the bundled version of the program, but you will need to pay for the upgrade from Ambrosia.

There have been issues with some of the older video cards in the Mac, but with your 17" iMac, I don't think that problem will come up.

Patrick Larkin

Snapz Pro only will capture a DVD if you have an nVidia card which I believe all the flat panel iMacs have inside. It will not capture DVD stills if you have an ATI card. Check Apple System Profiler to find out what you have for sure...

Otherwise, you could use VLC Media Player as your DVD player. It allows screen caps using the normal Cmd-Shift-3 combo... VLC is open source and free.

To record sound from a DVD, you could use Audio Hijack. Its $16 well spent since you can use it to rip most any sound producing app on your system.

Obligatory DVD List

Phil Kim

The screencapture command will capture the screenshot as well.[list=1][*]Run DVD Player, queue up (ideally in normal size, as in Command+1), and pause the scene you wish to capture.[*]Run Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal).[*]Type screencapture Desktop/dvd1.pdf (or whatever filename you prefer) without hitting the return/enter key![*]Move the Terminal window so that it does not cover the DVD screenshot.[*]Hit return/enter key. Viola![/list=1]

Tony Aguila

Patrick, I think that was only true for older Macs. I use Snapz Pro on my Quicksilver with the ATI Radeon 9000 Pro card for DVD screen caps all the time.

By the way, cmd-shift-3 will capture the entire screen. If you want to capture selected areas, use cmd-shift-4. The cursor will turn into a crosshair icon and you can drag select the area you want to capture.

I'll look into your suggestion about Audio Hijack. Thanks for the info.

Phil Kim

[/quote]By the way, cmd-shift-3 will capture the entire screen. If you want to capture selected areas, use cmd-shift-4. The cursor will turn into a crosshair icon and you can drag select the area you want to capture.[/quote]

That won't work for capturing screenshots from DVD Player. You have to use programs like Snapz Pro or screencapture command from the command-line interface (CLI). It will, however, work for VideoLAN.

Mark Cappelletty

Thanks for all the advice, guys! Big kudos to Patrick for alerting me to Audio Hijack, which looks great. Patrick, have you used Audio Hijack Pro? Are there any benefits to this over the regular Audio Hijack?

Nelson Au

Re: Looking For a DVD Screen Capture Program For Mac

Hey guys-

Thought I'd revive this thread for another screen cap question.

I know this maybe a touchy subject, but I am wondering if it's even possible to do still screen caps from HD-DVD's. I know the new HD media has copy protection built in, it seems rather difficult to do, if at all.

My Mac's don't have an HD drive and I don't have an external one. Just really curious if it's even possible in the Mac world. I won't get into what the PC guys can do for obvious reasons.

Thanks!