MovieSnapshot

[dot]

I really like this one, and it's sooo small!!! (Yep, you guessed right, found it on that Italian portable apps site, again)

MovieSnapshot

Homepage: http://www.cd2html.de/moviesnapshot.en.html

"Using Microsoft Windows XP or 2000 it is normally not as easy to create a thumbnail image out of a video. To exactly doing this I have written a small application called MovieSnapshot. With MovieSnapshot you can for example get a simple preview image for each video from a CD video archive. You can simply drag and drop a video out of the Windows Explorer on MovieSnapshot to open the video. After opening the video look for the right point to make a snapshot of. Then you only have to save the result - and that's it. MovieSnapshot suggests the video file name plus the extension ".jpg" as default for saving the snapshot.

It supports all installed DirectShow video and audio codecs. MovieSnapshot is freeware."

(requires DirectX 8 )

[Fluffy]

Hmmm. Seems kind of pointless since any media player worth its salt should be able to take snaps. Then if you want them smaller, just resample downwards. What's the real benefit here?

[dot]

To be honest, I don't know of any media player that takes snapshots. Always wanted to have that feature without having to resort to some blown-up, or even expensive, screen-shot utility (like Snag-it). So, for folks without a media player that takes snapshots (maybe I just keep missing this feature all the time), a tiny tool for the casual task might be just the thing. Well, sure is for me.

[Andrew Lee]

Media Player Classic has a File, Save image function that captures a snapshot directly. Both BMP and JPG formats are supported.

Which reminds me... what would be cool is an app that analyzes a video and automatically produces a thumbnail sheet of the "interesting" still frames in that video. So the thumbnail sheet will give a good indication of what the video is about without transmitting the whole video.

I have been looking for an app like that for the longest time but nothing so far. If any of you kind souls know of something like that, please share!

[dot]

Thanks for the hint, Andrew. I do have Media Player Classic, somewhere. But I'm hooked on ZoomPlayer, and only when that one doesn't play a codec, I use VLC. Both don't seem to have a snapshot feature. I need a snapshot of a movie only very rarely, anyway (so far, never yet).

[dot]

No idea whether a tool exactly as you want it exists. But did you see this tool here from the programmer who made MovieSnapshot?

"DPIC" http://www.cd2html.de/dpic.en.html

Seems to do what you need, except making the snapshots (and automatically) itself. But if you put your snapshots in a folder....

The program has quite a few options (backgrounds, size, rows, columns, borders, etc.)

Seems to be portable, too.

[Andrew Lee]

Nah, that just creates a thumbnail sheet from a list of pictures, and tons of apps can do that, including XnView and Irfanview.

I am looking for an app that will do it automatically given any AVI video file.

[Fluffy]

Thanks for the hint, Andrew. I do have Media Player Classic, somewhere. But I'm hooked on ZoomPlayer, and only when that one doesn't play a codec, I use VLC. Both don't seem to have a snapshot feature. I need a snapshot of a movie only very rarely, anyway (so far, never yet).

VLC has a snapshot function: CTRL+ALT+S IIRC. I don't know about Zoom, since I don't really bother with "watered-down" freeware.

[John tailor]

If you take a snapshot without specifying a directory to store them in then VLC will store them in C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Pictures (default directory can be changed). If they're not there then try reseting the Preferences and Cache within the VLC Preferences menu.
VLC player