Pictures can be copied from DVDs

By Anne Krishnan

Q. As a present for a wedding anniversary, my children took many of our slides and put together a great VHS tape for us. Unfortunately, in the process, one of the important slides was misplaced.

I need some help in my efforts to recapture it from the VHS tape. I can copy the tape onto a DVD. However, I cannot capture the desired photo from that DVD.

Is there a way to do this? Do I need some special program? I have a Mac with the Leopard operating system.

A. Copying pictures from a DVD can be quite complicated, says Bob Chandler, president of MacVantage, a Raleigh, N.C., IT firm.

Fortunately, 4Media makes a product that will do exactly what you need, he said. The software, DVD Frame Capture, lets you capture still images in a variety of formats while playing a DVD.

The software is available as a free download; a license for it costs $25. To learn more or download the software, visit www.mp4converter.net and look for DVD Frame Capture in the list of software on the right. It appears that the software is not available for PC users.

Readers have responded to recent columns:

USeveral readers noted after my column about Windows Service Pack 3 that the update had locked up or otherwise troubled their systems. John Goodman writes with an alternative approach. When he had difficulty using Win Update to install Service Pack 1 on his Vista machine, he had immediate success downloading it from the Microsoft support page. If you’re in the same boat, you can download SP3 at www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsxp/sp3/default.mspx.

UAnother recent column touched on how to secure data on your flash drive. Jim Miller with Cary, N.C.-based Research Triangle Software suggests two solutions developed by his firm: CryptoLock encryption software and RTS’ Portable Security Suite, which includes CryptoLock, other security software and a few portable applications. Learn more at www.rtsz.com.

UScott Field offered advice on getting rid of Google-mail messages that keep returning, without hiding future replies (a drawback of the solution I offered). Just delete the e-mail messages, he said, then go into your trash folder and click the button on the upper left that says “Delete forever.” There’s also a link at the top of the trash folder to “Empty Trash now,” which will permanently delete all of your deleted messages. Gmail doesn’t always deliver on its promise to permanently get rid of e-mails after 30 days, he said.

XThink you can stump the geeks? Send your high-tech question to stumpthegeeksnewsobserver.com. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Individual replies are not given.

2009, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)