The simplest way to capture a screenshot of whatever appears on your computer screen is to press the ‘Print Screen‘ key and then pasting the clipboard content into any image application like say, ‘Paint‘. This works well most of time, till you try to capture a still of a video playing in Windows Media Player. Alas, you only get a black screen where the video is supposed to be.
So, how do we do it? The easiest solution is to use a player that supports capture, like the VLC Media Player. When you are playing a video in VLC player, just click Video > Capture to capture a video frame.
But suppose you are forced to work with Windows Media Player, you can still manage to capture by modifying the settings. In Windows Media Player, go to Tools>Options>Performance>Advanced and uncheck the ‘Use Overlays‘ option and press ok.
The above method should work with other video players too, if you can find out how to disable overlays. Disabling overlays reduces the image quality. So, do remember to enable it once you have captured your screen.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.
And thank you.
Awesome tips for the Video Overlay. Thanks a lot! How did you come across this method? lol
Very helpful. Worked perfectly. Thanks!
Thank you! : P
This has been a big help. Thanks a lot
Thanks! This simple trick saved me a bundle of time!
Why doesn’t Microsoft’s “Help” (I use the term loosely) for Windows media player document this quick and easy tip for taking screen captures? It’s as if they want their software to be difficult to use.
THANK YOU – you have just saved my web customer a lot of my time!
thank you man.