Capturing stills from .AVI files

Jsnkc wrote on 4/4/2003, 10:13 AM
Does anyone out there know of a simple way to capture stills from an .avi file. I have over 100 avi files and I need to take stills from each one to put on a website. I already tried opening up the folder in XP and doing a print screen to capture all the thumbnails, but a lot of them are just black since it usually just displays what is in the first frame of the video on the thumbnail.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 4/4/2003, 10:22 AM
Do you have Vegas? If so, load the file into Vegas' timeline, move the cursor to the frame you want to capture. If you're using Vegas 3 you'll want to right-mouse-button click on the preview window first and select "display at project size". If you're using Vegas 4 you'll want to change the preview mode to "Best Full" instead of "Good Auto". Click on the little floppy disk icon just above the right corner of the preview window. You'll be given the choice to save it as JPEG or PNG.
PAW wrote on 4/4/2003, 10:24 AM

load the AVI into Vegas and move to the frame you want to capture.

In the video preview window there is a floppy disk icon which captures a still image from the frame.

The resolution captured will depend on your preview settings, higher the preview quality the higher the resolution.

If you have an interlace problems the best option is to take the still into photoshop/photoshop elements/paint shop and apply a deinterlace filter to clean up the image.

If you have Photoshop elements under import it will read an AVI file and allow you to capture directly.

I am sure there are a number of ways of acheiving this depending on the software packages you have on your system.

Cheers, PAW
Jsnkc wrote on 4/4/2003, 11:08 AM
Ahhhh, there's always some easy way to do it, that you never know about. Thanks.
dvddude wrote on 4/10/2003, 11:48 AM
Does this work well for everyone? I do exactly what you wrote, but even though my video sources are exclusively 720x480, I cannot seem to get that resolution using Vegas 4. I always get something slightly smaller, more in the 640x480 region, even with Preview:Best Full and the 'frame' dragged out big.

I also find PNG & JPG to be strange choices... why no TIFF or Targa?
Chienworks wrote on 4/10/2003, 11:53 AM
You should be getting files that are 654x480, which is correct. DV files have a pixel aspect ratio of 0.9090909... while still images have a pixel aspect ratio of 1.0. When you save a frame as a still image, it is converted to this ratio automatically. Similarly, a still at 654x480 when placed on the timeline will fill the 720x480 DV frame properly.

If you want a different file format, use the "Copy to clipboard" button instead, then paste the clipboard image into your favorite photo editor and save from there.
Jsnkc wrote on 4/10/2003, 3:03 PM
I actually only needed it to make some thombnails of video background loops that I am selling on my website, I haven't tried doing any full size pictures, but for thombnails it looks great.

Jason Casey
www.jcmediaservices.com