Screen capturing is a drain. I’ve mentioned before about the awesomeness of mplayer, but this time there is no turning back. This method is sure-fire for all those bloggers who feel that screen-capping takes too long.
Requirements
- mplayer
- a keyboard
- a config file in the .mplayer directory
- possibly a Linux distribution (I recommend a Debian variant such as Ubuntu, Mint, or Studio because the package management is so easy)
Alright, those requirements are really fuzzy, but that’s alright, this is just for kicks and ideas. Any mechanism can work, but its less troublesome when one knows what the body is capable of. In this case, it is mplayer.
Now, honestly, I’ve been slacking my anime watching because even with the easy of screen capturing with the PrintScrn button, it is still necessary to turn subtitles on/off (the ‘v’ key), pause (the spacebar), and jump backward in 10 second intervals (the Left-arrow key). As well as resize the screens afterward because it takes them at the desktop resolution. (I was using 1280×720 just so the 704×400 videos wouldn’t been capturing at 1920×1200, which = way overly large PNG files).
Implementation
Heres the config file, which goes in the .mplayer directory in the home folder
# Write your default config options here!
sid=0
ass=true
embeddedfonts=true
correct-pts=true
double=yes
framedrop=1
# hardframedrop=0
#
font=”/usr/share/fonts/truetype/mikachan/mikachan-PB.ttf”
subpos=70
subalign=2
#
monitoraspect=16:10
#
vf-add=screenshot
The important stuff. embeddedfonts enables those embedded TTF’s in mkv files. monitoraspect is crucial because the resolution will be adjusted accordingly. Finally, the last line adds a video filter which enables the screenshots (using the ’s’ key). I couldn’t figure out the last line for so long, but finally found it in a forum somewhere.
So how does it work? Well, when watching a video, just hit the ’s’ (lowercase). That’s it. If the viewer wishes to make a ton of shots the ‘S’ key (uppercase) will start and stop capturing (really really slows the feed down).
Benefits
- The output of this is natively sized (to the video resolution) PNG files, numbered shot0001…shotXXXX.
- If there were subtitles showing, they will not be captured (awesome)!
- If the video was full screen it will be in native resolution (if I view a 720p video in 1920×1200, the PNG will be 720p).
Because of the ease, I have ended up with 3 times as many shots because I will hit ’s’ twice just to be sure it gets the shot, so the only extra time is just deleting a couple extra frames. Bing-Bong!
I feel its a winner, hope the word gets around.
Ryan A
note: hoping for another post this week.
lol this is a known technique for most people who do the standard screenshots/summary/impression thing. Don’t tell anybody though, I still take them manually.
lol, really? The next step is integrating LIRC so that it maps to a remote button. I didn’t know many people were using mplayer though, I thought it was mostly Media Player Classic since CCCP is big and all.
Though, looking at the VLC docs it seems easy enough.
Hehe, I guess it is easier to screenshot raws in any case.
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