Tools for high-quality frame capture

[DonPMitchell]

One the main things I do with video is grab single frames in order to construct images of objects that are being panned. This is mostly for historical research, for example:

http://luciform.deviantart.com/art/Molniya-Rocket-40715431

Generally, I've been using WMP 11, PowerDVD or VLC to view DVD video (single-frame stepping is a must) and PrtSc to grab screen captures. Recently I discovered Avidemux, which may be a better way.

My question is, can you recommend some tools and settings for this kind of work? In VLC, for example, what is a good setting for "deinterlacing"? Do I need to worry about that issue with Avidemux?

Are there some tools that might be good at removing noise? I've been using MeeSoft Image analyzer for this, but it seems to me that you could remove noise from video by taking advantage of information in neighboring frames.

FWI, for panorama stitching, the Microsoft Digital Image Suite seems to have by far the best, although I can't image what else anyone could do with that peculiar program.

[dat720]

you could install mplayer, if you download the windows installer from mplayerhq it also installs a frontend to mplayer called smplayer, which is really quite nice and with a tap of the S key it spits out a png of the frame currently on screen weather paused or playing, it also has support for many different types of deinterlace

[DonPMitchell]

Thanks. I did try mplayer once a while ago. Mostly now I am looking for advice about deinterlacing (for best single-frame appearance) and noise reduction.

[unskinnyboy]

Install ffshow-tryouts (http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/), set it to decode MPEG-2, and you can do deinterlacing and denoising on-the-fly during playback. Look under the ffdshow video decoder configuration. I also suggest you ditch WMP and use Media Player Classic (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=170561), instead. For panorama creation, also look into IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com/).

[dat720]

Thanks. I did try mplayer once a while ago. Mostly now I am looking for advice about deinterlacing (for best single-frame appearance) and noise reduction.

smplayer has deinterlacing options, you simply click the video menu go down to deinterlace then try one of the options listed, it will change on the fly, which deinterlacer is a hard question to answer they all have different results on different clips, you sometimes have to try them all to find one that works best on your clip

mplayer is my main media player, beats just about anything else hands down, not as pretty or polished as WMP but if you can think of it it can probably do it, and smplayer has just about all of mplayers features accessable

[diego gr]

I start using Hyper Snap 6, 'cause printscreen did not work with VirtualDub, so I use it.
Lots of screen capture settings.

[DonPMitchell]

Thanks guys. ffshow-tryouts was an improvement. Media Player Classic can play all my .mpg, .vob and other stuff now, and it has a single-step button. I think I will set my file associations now and say goodby to VLC and WMP.

If I wanted to take a few seconds of video and dump out every frame as an image file, what would be a good way to do that? I'd like to experiment with image stacking and super resolution now.

[unskinnyboy]

If I wanted to take a few seconds of video and dump out every frame as an image file, what would be a good way to do that?VirtualDubMoD.

Use the Home and End keys to set the start and end points of the frame range. Then File -> Save image sequence.... Supported output formats include TGA, PNG & BMP.

[foxyshadis]

Have you ever searched for 'super-resolution'? That's the name for the technique you use (actually, the technique extended to still and video enlargements), and there are several programs that automate it.