DVD viewer

September 26, 2005 7:06 PM

Are there any free, non-trojaned DVD player apps for Windows that will let me view movies and capture frames? (Windows Media Player doesn't seem to do captures). Free or cheap is fine; I don't need bells & whistles.
posted by rolypolyman to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... there needs to be a disclaimer on AskMeFi that says, "If your question is about playing video on your computer, the answer is VLC"
posted by Robot Johnny at 7:30 PM on September 26, 2005

As it seems usefull only in the sense that it continues to pad my "how many times has thanotopsis answered questions" number, I'll be the third to suggest VLC. In my experience, it's been the best at playing DVDs, even in my ages-old laptop.
posted by thanotopsis at 7:43 PM on September 26, 2005

As an add-on question, how do MPlayer and VLC currently compare? MPlayer seems to support more formats (including WMV and Real). It's been awhile since I've looked closely at this issue; I run OS X, WinXP, and Linux, and I'd like to be able to use the same program on all three systems....
posted by mr_roboto at 7:53 PM on September 26, 2005

where does VLC store the frame caps - and is there a way to specify which directory it goes to? <frustrated/dumb>)
posted by PurplePorpoise at 7:56 PM on September 26, 2005

my 2c:

i've built my whole home theater PC around mplayer. xine is the best for playing a DVD in the sense that xine understands all the DVD menus, etc. but sometimes the deinterlacing in xine looks horrible.

i used to use VLC on my mac, but now i have mplayer built from fink. i hardly ever touch VLC anymore.

on x86, mplayer can use windows .dlls to get you WMV10. on other architectures i think the best you can do is WMV8 or 9.

mplayer can do frame captures by using -vo png. unless you tell it to -ss mm:ss and -frames N, it will dump the whole movie into .png files with that video output. but -ss mm:ss and -frames 1 will give you exactly one frame at the mm:ss point of whatever track you are playing on the DVD.
posted by joeblough at 8:16 PM on September 26, 2005

Are there any answers other than VLC? Because I've been searching for a program like the poster asked for, and I've tried VLC several times—and every single time, it crashed my computer immediately after I tried to run it, saying a serious system error had occurred.

(And I don't really want to go through troubleshooting VLC—I've tried the usual solutions, and there's just pretty much no way it'll work with my XP setup. I'd rather have a different software solution, if y'all have any suggestions.)
posted by limeonaire at 8:18 PM on September 26, 2005

Media Player Classic can also play DVDs and do frame grabs (if you try it, it's under File/Save Image). I find that it's a lot easier to use than VLC. As a plus, it can also replace the crappy Windows Media Player.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 8:44 PM on September 26, 2005

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but you can print-screen, even with Media Player. You just have to uncheck one box:
Tools>>Options>>Performance>>Advanced
Uncheck "Use Overlays"

worked for me.
posted by SAC at 9:04 PM on September 26, 2005

You can pick up PowerDVD for cheap if you watch for sales and deals on the various deals site. I have VLC, MediaPlayer Classic, PowerDVD, WinDVD. Tend to use PowerDVD most of the time when I am watching DVD content on big screen. All other content gets routed to MP Classic. I almost never use Windows Media Player of course.
posted by flyby22 at 7:19 AM on September 27, 2005

VLC does not (seem to) have frame-by-frame advance.
posted by mischief at 10:36 PM on June 1, 2006