Take a screenshot with DVD Player running
You're familiar with the scenario: You're watching a DVD in OS X with Apple's DVD Player, and you decide you want to take a screenshot. Whether your target is the movie you're watching or not, you're efforts will be greeted with the error message pictured above:
"Screengrabs are unavailable during DVD playback. Please quit DVD Player first."
Apple has had this nifty little "feature" in place since the birth of OS X, as far as I can remember (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). In fact, in order to get the grab of the error message, I had to pop in a movie, try to take a screenshot, elicit the error message and then quit DVD Player without clicking the message away. But what if you want to take a legitimate screenshot, one that has nothing to do with the movie you just happen to be watching? Jason at Random Tech has the answer. He writes:
- Put your DVD in your computer and open DVD Player (Applications -> DVD Player) if it does not open automatically. Go to Video -> Maximum Size, or hit Command-3. Fast forward to the frame you want to capture, or select the scene to start at.
- Open the Terminal (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal). Type this, or copy / paste it right in the Terminal: screencapture -i ~/Desktop/dvd.jpg
- Your mouse should turn into crosshairs. Now hit the space bar. Your mouse should now be a camera. Click the window the DVD is playing in. A file called "dvd.jpg" will appear on your desktop.
He lists other options as well. Now that this is out in the wild, look for Apple to disable it in the not-so-distant future.
[Via MacBytes]