In another thread, Binaa2 asked what program I use to do screencaps and video clips, so I figured I'd start something under the tech forum to talk about it
Media Player Classic
and taking screen snapshots
This great little program
Go here to download the player. Depending on which operating system you use, you will want to get the latest (6.4.8.4) release, for Windows2k/:wub: (mpc2kxp6484.zip) or Windows98/ME (mpc98me6484.zip).
Extract the zip to someplace that makes sense - in my case I put it in
c:\program files\media player classic
Note how the program is so tiny (4MB!) and is free of advertisements and useless bandwidth wasting page loadings.
Start it up, you'll be amazed at how fast it loads (that is if you're used to using Windows Media Player).
The following thing needs to be done once, and you never have to do it again .
Select View->Options (or hit "O")
First - select the "Formats" tab, click the "Video" button, to make this program your default player for video files. (If you install something that takes over the associations, you can always reassociate it using this method). You may want to uncheck playlists though, if you are a Winamp user.
Second - select the "Output" tab, and make sure you're using one of the (renderless) options. This allows you to save images. The other options you can play with.
Now whenever you want to save a screenshot - click on the file menu, and select save image. How simple is that?
-nyekobug
[EDIT] Useful Media Player Classic keys (default keyset)
CTRL-SHIFT-0: removes ALL controls, making it just a video window with a tiny border
CTRL-SHIFT-1: brings menu bar, and basic controls
CTRL-SHIFT-2: restores all basic controls - including seek bar
ALT-1 : shrinks video down to 50% size
ALT-2 : restores video to full size
ALT-3 : doubles video size
ALT-ENTER : puts video as full screen
View->On Top-> While Playing - hides the window when you pause it
Space-pause
Left/Right arrows: single step
Mouse wheel up/down: Volume control
PgUp/PgDn: Track up / Track down (if you load multiple files into it)
MPC also plays DVDs no problem