Photos from films / camcorder

[Boring Bloke]

Boring technical query I'm afraid: I'd like to know how easy it is to get photos from a film. You see plenty of screen capture vidcaps on the net so they must get them somehow. Are they doing anything more than just playing the film through the TV and taking a photo of the TV screen?

I'd also like to know whether its any easier to do this from film shot on a camcorder. I don't have any specialist editing equipment (apart from a PC of course) but I'm prepared to buy it if necessary.

[Mego]

Buy a video capture card and suitable software (any competent dealer will advise) that can accept analogue input (I use Moviestar). Record the movie (the software will digitise it and allow you to take screen caps. Budget on ?150 to ?200.

[Anzen]

While it cetainly is possible to take photos of a TV screen, the results are less than perfect. Old computer game magazines used to do this. If you want to do this, I can give you some pointers.
If you have a VHS tape, and you want to get stills of a film, then the best bet would be a video capture device for your PC. For example, you could pick up a D-Link USB Capture Device for ?50 from www.dabs.co.uk Code: 164CWS
If you want to make your own vids, your best bet for top quality would be to get a digital camcorder, which usually come with devices for downloading video to a PC, but these are expensive, starting from about ?350.

Hope this helps,
AK

[Boring Bloke]

Thanks very much for the advice guys. I'll look into getting one of them video capture doo daas.