Possible Solution?
Okay, so you may remember that I posted a while back, complaining about losing my old software when I upgraded to Windows 10, and the difficulties I was having in replacing them. Well, I might have worked out a solution to one of those issues. Maybe.
I've been watching anime lately, and I really wanted to work out a way for me to keep screencapping it. I was able to find places to download screencaps that other people had posted for a couple of series on my to-be-watched list, but not for most of them. So I needed to figure something out. Well, I might just have it. It's not a perfect solution, but it might work.
I use VLC Player for most of my video watching. And, since upgrading, I've also used it to watch DVDs. The only problem being that when you use VLC to screencap a subtitled video, the subs appear on the screencaps. Which makes them pretty useless. While trying to find a setting that would allow me to take sub-free caps, I stumbled on a feature that I didn't even know existed. Apparently, you can set VLC to auto-screencap. You just have to give it an image format, a location, and how often you want to cap. (Every 'x' number of frames, I think is how it goes.) So this is pretty cool, right? The only downside being that I have to essentially run through each disk twice. Once to watch it, with subtitles on. And once to run the automatic capping, with subtitles off. That's the only way to get sub-free caps in VLC, apparently.
So, yeah. I'm trying it out on the next series I plan to watch. It's a little inconvenient, having to go through each disk twice. Especially since I'm trying to not do anything else on the computer at the time, so VLC can have all the system resources it needs. But, still. I do really like being able to watch anime without having to manually cap it myself. I never really realized how much of a pain that was, until I stopped doing it. And now, I really prefer it this way. So, being able to just sit and watch makes this option very attractive. Even if I do have to go back and run the disk again later. The only other issue is how many caps it's generating. I may need to tinker with the settings a bit, I'm not sure. The way I've got it set now, I'm getting a lot of duplicates. Anytime there's a scene with people standing around talking, not moving much, I get a bunch of very similar shots. So, I may raise the number of frames between caps a bit. I'm just afraid that if I do that, I'll miss out on good caps during fast paced segments. So, I don't know. I've done two disks, so far. I'm going to go through those caps and weed out the duplicates, and any other useless ones. (Scenery, blurry shots, etc.) If that's not too big of a pain, I might just leave it as-is. If it is, then I'll consider changing it.
We'll see how it goes, but I'm hopeful that this might work out. <3
EDIT: Okay, well I learned something else. Apparently, if you try to cap any of the extras, VLC thinks it's capping something new, and it overwrites the old caps already in the folder. =P Not a huge deal, but a little annoying. So, I guess if there are any extras (like textless opening/ending sequences) that I want to cap, I'll have to remember to do just one at a time, then stop the disk and move the files. Then I can start the disk again and do the next one the same way. Repeat until all extras are covered. Then stop the disk, move the files, and restart the disk to cap the actual episodes.
I've been watching anime lately, and I really wanted to work out a way for me to keep screencapping it. I was able to find places to download screencaps that other people had posted for a couple of series on my to-be-watched list, but not for most of them. So I needed to figure something out. Well, I might just have it. It's not a perfect solution, but it might work.
I use VLC Player for most of my video watching. And, since upgrading, I've also used it to watch DVDs. The only problem being that when you use VLC to screencap a subtitled video, the subs appear on the screencaps. Which makes them pretty useless. While trying to find a setting that would allow me to take sub-free caps, I stumbled on a feature that I didn't even know existed. Apparently, you can set VLC to auto-screencap. You just have to give it an image format, a location, and how often you want to cap. (Every 'x' number of frames, I think is how it goes.) So this is pretty cool, right? The only downside being that I have to essentially run through each disk twice. Once to watch it, with subtitles on. And once to run the automatic capping, with subtitles off. That's the only way to get sub-free caps in VLC, apparently.
So, yeah. I'm trying it out on the next series I plan to watch. It's a little inconvenient, having to go through each disk twice. Especially since I'm trying to not do anything else on the computer at the time, so VLC can have all the system resources it needs. But, still. I do really like being able to watch anime without having to manually cap it myself. I never really realized how much of a pain that was, until I stopped doing it. And now, I really prefer it this way. So, being able to just sit and watch makes this option very attractive. Even if I do have to go back and run the disk again later. The only other issue is how many caps it's generating. I may need to tinker with the settings a bit, I'm not sure. The way I've got it set now, I'm getting a lot of duplicates. Anytime there's a scene with people standing around talking, not moving much, I get a bunch of very similar shots. So, I may raise the number of frames between caps a bit. I'm just afraid that if I do that, I'll miss out on good caps during fast paced segments. So, I don't know. I've done two disks, so far. I'm going to go through those caps and weed out the duplicates, and any other useless ones. (Scenery, blurry shots, etc.) If that's not too big of a pain, I might just leave it as-is. If it is, then I'll consider changing it.
We'll see how it goes, but I'm hopeful that this might work out. <3
EDIT: Okay, well I learned something else. Apparently, if you try to cap any of the extras, VLC thinks it's capping something new, and it overwrites the old caps already in the folder. =P Not a huge deal, but a little annoying. So, I guess if there are any extras (like textless opening/ending sequences) that I want to cap, I'll have to remember to do just one at a time, then stop the disk and move the files. Then I can start the disk again and do the next one the same way. Repeat until all extras are covered. Then stop the disk, move the files, and restart the disk to cap the actual episodes.