Sometimes, we might want to take a screenshot of a video or movie for whatever reason. Maybe you want to take a shot from a movie and make it your background. Or print up a set of instructions displayed on the screen. I use VLC as my media player and it has a built-in option for taking a screenshot from a video.
Screenshots With VLC
Using VLC, first click View and in the menu that drops down, check Advanced Controls.
Then, usually towards the bottom you will see a new toolbar added, and one of the icons looks like a camera. Pause the video, click on that camera icon, and you have your screenshot.
Another way is to right-click on the video, and in the menu that appears, click on Video, and in the sub-menu, right at the bottom, is Take Snapshot.
My problem arose after upgrading to the latest version of VLC. On some videos, clicking on the camera icon, or trying any other way to create a screenshot, would cause VLC to crash.
Fixing VLC Crashes
So, the solution– Go to Tools, and then Preferences, or press Ctrl+P.
Click on the Input/ codecs symbol at the top. If you don’t see it there, go to the lower left-hand corner and under Show Settings, tick the Simple button.
Then, in the first section called Codecs, there is a line that says Hardware-accelerated decoding. It’s probably set to Automatic— click on it. I set it to Disable. Click Save on the bottom-right. That worked for me.