Help with capturing a single video frame using irfanview

[Eclectk]

Hi folks,

I'm trying to capture a single selected frame from a video using irfanview. When I select screen capture, however, it shifts off the video I have opened in my screen, and goes to the window behind it. I had stumbled on the screen capture settings once before, but now can't find them again - and don't know what settings to use so I actually can grab the frame from the video in irfanview. Also, is there some way to advance frame by frame in an mp4 video - just a single frame (smallest time increment possible) - with irfanview?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Unless it is a long video, extract all frames might be the easiest method. In Settings, Enable the Internal video viewer, open the video, extract all frames from the Options menu.

Edit: I just saw your other thread.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Try these Capture settings.



Pause the video, Set the Capture Settings, Alt+Tab, to focus the video, Ctrl+F11 (or whatever) to capture the current frame with Left click.

[Eclectk]

Thanks Bhikkhu. Unfortunately, it's not working for me. When I have it set to "object selected by mouse" as soon as I hit ctrl F11, it swapped off of irfanview and onto my browser page. :-( Also, when I hit "alt-tab" it just flips to the next irfanview image rather than letting me do anything with focus.

Is there any way to advance a video frame by frame in irfanview? I have to be able to do that... I didn't see a shortcut key for frame by frame...Did I miss something that way? I've got short videos (1 to 1 1/2 min. long) of horses moving fast, and need to catch very specific "best" spots in the horse's stride...

I've been using VLC player to do it, but unfortunately when you go frame by frame after a little bit rather than advancing a frame, it freezes, so you have to change the video position a little and try again - which winds up with duplicate grabs and a lot of wasted time. I was hoping that irfanview might be better... Sigh. GOM player doesn't work for this either - you can go frame by frame, but when you hit screen capture, it doesn't actually take that frame, it takes one that's one to a few frames after the one you're on!

I had thought that the irfanview "extract all frames" might work well, but as you see from my other post, the DirectShow thing doesn't seem to work either.

I did find a thread from a couple of years ago with some people having problems with irfanview 64 bit (which is what I've got installed) and directshow if they had nvidia graphics drivers (as I do). They weren't able to even play video however, without opening it twice. One person said that if they installed irfanview 32 bit instead that it solved the problem - I might try that. I'm assuming that I can have both versions on the same computer if I just install the 32 bit one in a separate folder?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

VLC frame-by-frame mode works fine for me. Are you using the latest 64-bit version?

That is vlc-3.0.16-win64

[JendaLinda]

The video suport in IrfanView is very limited. For this purpose, a simple video editor would be better and more convenient. Try Avidemux, it's free and allows to extract individual video frames.

[Eclectk]

Thank you Bhikkhu - yes, I'm using the most current VLC version. I let the video run until I get to a point where I know there might be some frames I want, pause, then go frame by frame... get any grabs, then hit play, let it go a little more, pause and go frame by frame again... Wonder if maybe switching back and forth between regular playing mode & frame by frame is what causes it to start freezing the image. Irritating, whatever the cause.

[Eclectk]

Thank you JendaLinda - I'll give that a shot! Probably 10 or 15 years ago I had a great little video editing program on a mac... I've been pining over it while trying to do this stuff, because it would have been so much faster, and probably better quality grabs too. So I've been tempted to try to find a decent video editing program. I know I've heard of Avidemux before (likely when looking for such a program in the past, may have even gotten it on an older computer but never tried it - and never would have remembered the name). So I'll give that a shot for sure, and you likely just saved me some time and effort trying to figure out a decent program that way. ?

[Eclectk]

I discovered that it IS capturing the irfanview screen, when I have capture settings set to foreground window.

Is there a way to go frame by frame tho in irfanview?

[IrfanUserGuyxyx]

If you stop Irfanview and right-click (or ctrl-c) you can copy the frame and paste it into a second instance of Irfanview then save it.

For what it's worth, the Klite codec pack https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm comes with Media Player Classic which does frame by frame very well (ctrl-right or ctrl-left) (also using slider to find what you want) and has "save image" in the file menu to grab a frame. The codec pack also provides codecs to play basically anything.

I use IrfanView for almost everything, but I have used Media Player Classic in presentations to play videos when I needed to stop and go frame by frame because PowerPoint does not do that well.

Matt

[Eclectk]

Thank you Matt. Is there any way to go frame by frame with irfanview? The problem is the video is action - and I need very specific spots in the action, so no way to use the play/pause button and get the best spot - I need frame by frame. Would like to know how to do that - if possible - in irfanview (even if I find some other program works better for this, would still be nice to know how to go frame by frame in irfanview).

I'll also give Media Player Classic with the codec a shot and see how it does - thanks for the suggestion. Being able to not only go one frame forward, but also one frame back as you say it can would be a bonus - if it is easy to do screen grabs and those grabs are the highest possible resolution from the video. I'm trying to clip out action shots of horses to show their stride in the best possible way, so I have to be able to go along frame by frame. VLC lets me do that, and gets good sized easy grabs, but for some reason, particularly near the end of the video, the screen image freezes, and that's a pain.

Years ago I had a great little video editing program on a mac (I'm on PC now, and program too old to be compatible with windows 10). It had a "film slider" along the bottom where you could see the entire video and easily use the slider to get to points you wanted, then zoom in, see all frames in that short section, pick ones you wanted, and so on, with the large full size image above that film strip so you could see what you were getting well also. Wish I had that now, it'd be perfect for this!

[JendaLinda]

Did you try Avidemux? It can step frame by frame, forward and back. And it doesn't need any additional codecs.

[Eclectk]

I've installed it, and opened it, but haven't messed around with it yet really, tho I sure will! JendaLinda, do you know if there's any way to have it show a film strip under (or over) the main play screen, so you can easily see and jump to various spots in the video?

[JendaLinda]

There's a time line at the bottom of the window above the controls.

[Eclectk]

Yes, I'd seen the timeline - but is there a way to get it to show every x number of frames in the video? So you can see approx. where you want to jump to in the video easily? At least when I had it open yesterday, I didn't see any images associated with the timeline, just the timeline slider...