How To Take DVD Screen Shots In OS X

April 18th, 2008

Screen shots are easy to do on the Mac using Apple’s Grab utility.

Unfortunately, Grab is disabled when watching a DVD with Apple’s DVD Player application. That makes it hard to use if you want to save an screen shot image of a DVD for say, a movie review or something.

Some programs you can use to take screen shots InstantShot! (suggested by reader Dave), VLC, and Handbrake in conjunction with Grab.

Use InstantShot To Take A Screen Shot

InstantShot! is like Grab on steroids. Launching InstantShot puts a little scissors icon in your menu bar. To take a screen shot, click on it and go to Shoot Screen > To Jpeg File. The screen shot appears in your user folder.

InstantShot has many other options for screen shots (within a rectangle, a timer, customizable keyboard shortcuts, file formats) which deserve a separate post.

Use VLC To Take A Screen Shot

VLC can play back DVDs. Insert a DVD into your computer drive and launch VLC. Go to File > Open Disc. A dialog box pops up that defaults to your optical disc drive.

You can then navigate through your DVD just like Apple’s DVD Player, and using the VLC controls. Start playing a scene until you find an image you want to capture.

Go to Video > Snapshot. VLC will export a captured image in PNG format.

Use Handbrake To Take A Screen Shot

This method is a “kludge” but works okay. Insert the DVD into your Mac’s optical drive and launch Handbrake. Click the “Picture Settings” button.

You’ll then see a section that shows a sample image from the DVD chapter you chose. Click the “Next” button to see some other representative images.

Then use Apple’s Grab utility to capture a screen shot from what’s displayed in Handbrake.

I said “kludge” because using Handbrake, you don’t have as much control over the images shown, and have to use Grab, but in a pinch it will suffice.