Problems with/questions about screencapping with PowerDVD
When I first went about screencapping, I used the free trial of WinDVD. I liked it, but when I needed to make more screencaps of a character for someone, I decided that finances justified me trying the free trial of PowerDVD instead of purchasing WinDVD. Well, I used PowerDVD to cap an episode, and I'm having some issues that I hope someone can help me with. Please?
Question 1:
Okay, first of all, I'm having some aspect ratio issues. I told the program to take pictures at the same size as the video source, but the pictures I got looked a bit odd to me. They looked to me like someone had stretched Madeline's face a bit from side to side...
Also, in addition to looking a bit stretched, another reason I think the aspect ratio might be a bit off is that when I play the DVD on my computer, I think it looks more square-ish than this cap looks. I don't know why the aspect ratio would be screwed up on the default setting, though. I then decided to take the dimensions that WinDVD had capped to and ask PowerDVD to cap to those same dimensions. I checked the "keep aspect ratio" box (which was not an option in the cap to original video dimensions choice) and I got this...
I'm not sure if this is right either. (Although, it looks better to me.) Of course, as I told it to keep the aspect ratio, wouldn't you assume that it would have done black bars around the picture if those dimensions weren't the correct ones? (Hmm... maybe I should try out different dimensions and see what happens...)
Oh, and for reference, this is what I got from WinDVD...
And as that looks more like the second picture, I'm thinking maybe that means the second one is the "correct" one? But, I asked this question on a forum and someone said that he/she thought the second picture (and thus the WinDVD picture) looked squashed from side to side and the first picture looked more correct, so now I'm paranoid that maybe WinDVD was capping to the wrong aspect ratio and all of those pictures are actually the ones that are messed up and the first PowerDVD one is what they all should have looked like. *sigh* This is why I prefer to get my screencaps from websites!
So, if people could help me figure out which aspect ratio is correct, and (if it is the second one) how I could make PowerDVD cap it correctly without having to type in the dimensions, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Question 2:
Okay, as I was comparing the pictures to try to figure out the aspect ratio, I noticed that the PowerDVD caps are much redder than the WinDVD caps. Why would this be, and how could I fix it?
Question 3:
When I went to resize the pictures for posting, I noticed that in image size, Photobucket said the PowerDVD caps had a resolution of only 2 pixels/inch. Why? And is there a way to fix that to make it a more normal 72 or 96 (which is what WinDVD capped at)? Does it have something to do with the fact it saves as bitmap rather than jpg?
Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated, as I really don't want to have to spend money on a program just yet.
Question 1:
Okay, first of all, I'm having some aspect ratio issues. I told the program to take pictures at the same size as the video source, but the pictures I got looked a bit odd to me. They looked to me like someone had stretched Madeline's face a bit from side to side...
Also, in addition to looking a bit stretched, another reason I think the aspect ratio might be a bit off is that when I play the DVD on my computer, I think it looks more square-ish than this cap looks. I don't know why the aspect ratio would be screwed up on the default setting, though. I then decided to take the dimensions that WinDVD had capped to and ask PowerDVD to cap to those same dimensions. I checked the "keep aspect ratio" box (which was not an option in the cap to original video dimensions choice) and I got this...
I'm not sure if this is right either. (Although, it looks better to me.) Of course, as I told it to keep the aspect ratio, wouldn't you assume that it would have done black bars around the picture if those dimensions weren't the correct ones? (Hmm... maybe I should try out different dimensions and see what happens...)
Oh, and for reference, this is what I got from WinDVD...
And as that looks more like the second picture, I'm thinking maybe that means the second one is the "correct" one? But, I asked this question on a forum and someone said that he/she thought the second picture (and thus the WinDVD picture) looked squashed from side to side and the first picture looked more correct, so now I'm paranoid that maybe WinDVD was capping to the wrong aspect ratio and all of those pictures are actually the ones that are messed up and the first PowerDVD one is what they all should have looked like. *sigh* This is why I prefer to get my screencaps from websites!
So, if people could help me figure out which aspect ratio is correct, and (if it is the second one) how I could make PowerDVD cap it correctly without having to type in the dimensions, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Question 2:
Okay, as I was comparing the pictures to try to figure out the aspect ratio, I noticed that the PowerDVD caps are much redder than the WinDVD caps. Why would this be, and how could I fix it?
Question 3:
When I went to resize the pictures for posting, I noticed that in image size, Photobucket said the PowerDVD caps had a resolution of only 2 pixels/inch. Why? And is there a way to fix that to make it a more normal 72 or 96 (which is what WinDVD capped at)? Does it have something to do with the fact it saves as bitmap rather than jpg?
Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated, as I really don't want to have to spend money on a program just yet.