How can I copy an image from Media Player?

[Rick N.]

I'm using Media Player to locate an image in a video file. I need to process the image for OCR. But I don't know how to copy the image.

Thank you.

[MikeS81]

Hi Rick.N,

i´m not sure if there is an Activex Property to take a picture with Media Player, but one solution could be to make a screen shot of it. There are some programs which can make a screen shot with ActiveX support. Hope this helps.

Mike

[daveTW]

Which programs? Can you give examples? Are they free, shareware or do they cost money?
greets, Dave

[MikeS81]

Hi Dave,

i don´t remember the name (i needed it a long time ago), but i´m sure google has an answer. 🙂 Another way could be to simulate a key down event (Ctrl and Print) and read it from the clipboard.

Mike

[JeffOverton]

http://www.fraps.com/

Fraps has a pretty good image capture suite

edit - also, I'm pretty sure that windows screen capture doesn't capture most video.  it will only capture the surrounding program with a black window.

Message Edited by JeffOverton on 02-18-2008 08:47 AM

[kehander]

Indeed, media players frequently use "video overlay".  Often, however, the media player itself has an explicit function to write the currently-displayed frame to a file.

The freeware VLC Player, from http://www.videolan.org, can do this, for instance.

[unclebump]

You can put an activex media player control on the front panel. Then you can right click on the control and create an invoke node to Get Image. The file is in version 8.5.

[DFGray]

You can use VirtualDub to show the frame of interest, then take a screenshot.  VirtualDub also supports saving image sequences, so that may work for you, as well, if you clip the areas around the frame you want.  VirtualDub is a free video processor available under the GPL license.  Some versions can be controlled programmatically, although I have never heard of anyone doing this in LabVIEW.

[Rick N.]

UncleBump

I tried the invoke node approach but only got the frame with a black screen.

Is there a trick to getting the actual image.

(btw, I couldn't open you file. We're at 8.2 here)

[unclebump]

No idea. Never tried to do it before this.