Sony Vegas Pro (Better Screen Grabs)

[RMK 3]

I’m using Sony Vegas Pro 8c. Is there a way to get higher resolution screengrabs (JPEGs). The “Save Snapshot to File” button produces a 480x270x24b image. I’ve searched here and on some of the Sony forum sites and can’t find an answer.

Additionally, the “Copy Snapshot to Clipboard” yields a distorted aspect ratio if pasted into say a MS Word File. This is from HD recordings on a Sony CX6 set to highest quality

"Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

[DSE 3]

Set preview to BEST/FULL prior to taking screen grab.
Save as PNG for best results.
If you'd search the Sony Creative Software site (only Sony site) you'll find the answer there.

The aspect ratio isn't distorted by Vegas, but rather by MS Word. If your source is HDV or DV, the pixels are not square, and MS Word cannot read non-square pixel images. Therefore, you have to export from Vegas using a square pixel format, ie; 720 x 360 for a widescreen square pixel image.

[RMK 3]

Thanks Spot, I had Vegas set to BEST/AUTO. The BEST/FULL setting gives a much larger image (1920x1080x32b PNG). However, there’s now a varying amount of “combing” in the output photos.

It’s not too bad; I tried BEST/HALF and the combing is gone, but not as good of a photo as the BEST/FULL. Any ideas re the “combing”

Hope you’re healing well.

"Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

[DSE 3]

The 'combing' as you call it, is interlacing. The way to get rid of that has a couple of options.
-Set project properties to Progressive instead of Interlaced (for video editing, you'll want it set to Interlaced, but for screen captures, you'll want Progressive).
-Use Ultimate S (third party plug in tool that does a LOT more than screen grabs) to capture your shots. It auto-sets everything to the best settings. (NOTE!!! I own the company that developed Ultimate S, so this could be considered a "buy my product" statement).

-In Options | Preferences | Display you can set Vegas to auto-deinterlace for stills.

Next, you have to decide the best method to deinterlace. You have two choices; Interpolate and Blend Fields. Fast motion almost always does best with Interpolate" but sometimes in skydiving (it's not always fast motion), Blend Fields will provide a better result. YMMV.

Why are you capturing screen grabs? If I understand your final goal, I might have some better answers.

Thanks for the healing wishes. I'm healing more slowly than I'd like, now that we've discovered the CRPS, it's going much faster, but it took 5 doctors, a Blackberry Storm, and a lot of time to discover what the problem was.

[RMK 3]

Thanks again, will give that a try. As for usage, I just had a couple frames from my vids that I wanted to grab a still for my computer photo album and/or iPhone.

I bought VegasPro last year and have been just learning as I go. I have your VASST Discs and find the Sony Creative Software and Creative Cow sites useful when I “get stuck” trying to do something new/creative.

Googling a VegasPro problem usually yields many pages of sites. Do you have any other “best picks” for video editing forums or how-to sites?

"Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

[DSE 3]

The Sonycreativesoftware.com site and the CreativeCow.net site are my best recommends.
I thought you might be trying to create a webpage content feed or something, so what I was thinking of won't benefit you.