For RealPlayer, you will need to turn off the optimized display. You can do this by running RealPlayer, clicking on View -> Preferences, going to the Performance tab, unchecking the box labeled “Use optimized video display”, hitting OK, and restarting RealPlayer. Now you may make take a screenshot by pressing the [ALT + PRNTSCRN] combination. You can paste this screenshot into any graphics editing program (e.g. MS Paintbrush) and save the file. When you are done taking screenshots, you should re-enable the optimized video display because this makes videos play smoother and look better.

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For Windows Media Player, you have to disable Hardware Acceleration. You can do this in Windows Media Player 6.4 and later by clicking on View -> Options and moving the Hardware Acceleration slider to None. You can do this in Windows Media Player 7 by clicking on Tools -> Options, going to the Performance tab, moving the Hardware Acceleration slider to None, and restarting Windows Media Player. For Windows Media Player 10, to get to the acceleration option it is slightly different; go to Tools > Options > Performance > Scroll the bar at the bottoms.

Now you may make take a screenshot by pressing the [ALT + PRNTSCRN] combination. You can paste this screenshot into any graphics editing program (e.g. MS Paintbrush) and save the file. When you are done taking screenshots, you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider back to Full because this makes videos play smoother and look better.

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For Mac, with the movie in normal size (not the cmd-F fullscreen size, just for better quality and smaller image size) just pause the movie when you want, in most of software with space bar, and hit cmd-shift-4 (the upper 4, not the numeric pad). A cross will appear to let you select the part of the screen to capture. (Note: with 3, you capture the whole screen).
It will create a .jpg .tiff or, most probably under OSX, a .pdf file on your desktop. As it’s customary to send jpegs here for that kind of things, drop it on any graphic application (Photoshop style, but even Preview will do) and save (or export) it as a jpeg with a quality of 50 on 100 — or 5 on 10.

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To make more professional screenshots:

You need image grabber ll.

This will enable you to have a title, details about the movie (size, format, length etc) as well as screenshots taken at regular intervals with timestamps on them.

Step 1: Open imagegrabber ll.
Step 2: Click file and open the movie you want to make screen caps of.
Step 3: After opening the movie press the “little black tv button”.
Step 4: When the dialog pops up choose the number of screencaps you want to make and press “OK”.
Step 5: click “File”, then click “Save file”, name it and choose a directory to save it to.
Step 6: Upload the image to an image hosting site (imageshack.us)
Step 7: And you are done.

Thank You.

“You have spoken! Here are the videos that you voted to the top of the heap. Winners will get bragging rights, a trophy and a special invitation to an event later this year.”

 Maybe you won but you don’t know. Check it out here.

How to find dead pixels on your LCD Screen ?

What Causes a Dead Pixel? How to fix dead pixels ?

- All your queries and concerns related to dead pixels are answered here.

LCD screens are the most likely component to contain noticeable flaws in the form of the dreaded dead pixels. There are 3.9 million sub-pixels (red, green and blue) on a standard 1280×1024 resolution LCD monitor, and each of these is a transistor. Occasionally these individual transistors responsible for carrying current to a pixel will either short out or remain open resulting in what is called a dead pixel. Dead pixels are rare and largely go unnoticed by the user.

A “lit” pixel is one that appears as one of several randomly placed white, red, blue or green pixel elements on a dark background, or you may have a “missing” pixel which shows up as a black dot on a light colored background. Apple prefers to call it “pixel anomaly”.

Dead Pixel Locator is a neat utility to check the LCD monitor or plasma display for dead pixels. It checks the LCD screen for dead pixels and displays the faulty pixels in a color different than the background color.

How to fix dead pixels ? Fixing dead pixels may involve a bit of luck. If you notice dead pixels, try rubbing the LCD screen area gently by pressing a finger gently through a rag around the pixel.

Remember that notebook manufacturer have their own policy on how many dead pixels warrants a return and replacement. Dell considers a screen defective only if it has six or more faulty pixels. The problem is, most people are not aware of this policy before they get their notebook and falsely assume that one dead pixel is good enough to ask for a replacement, but this is generally not the case.

Download the application by clicking here.