A Few Mac Questions

[Guardian Enzo]

So I've finally gone over to the dark side and bought my first Apple product ever (a Macbook Air). As I'm still a complete newbie when it comes to Macs, I'm hoping someone can help me out with a few questions that I'm not easily finding answers to on the interwebs:

Is there any way to screen capture on Mplayer X without taking the subtitles, as you can do in MPC? MPC isn't available for the Mac platform so isn't an option. MPlayer seems to be the best option for Macs and handles hi10p without a problem, but the capture thing is an issue.

Failing that, does anyone know of a good screen capture utility (preferably a free app) that could accomplish the same thing? One-key functionality would be huge - either using the keyboard or a trackpad gesture.

Any bloggers out there? I really like Windows Live Writer, but none of the options for Mac seem to come close to it in terms of functionality. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Is there any way to screen capture on Mplayer X without taking the subtitles, as you can do in MPC? MPC isn't available for the Mac platform so isn't an option. MPlayer seems to be the best option for Macs and handles hi10p without a problem, but the capture thing is an issue.

I've never taken a snapshot through a video program, so I'm not 100% positive on this. With Mplayer X, did you try disabling the subtitles and then taking the snapshot? If that doesn't work, other video players on OS X to try are VLC and MPlayer OS X Extended. I don't know if they'll have the functionality that you're looking for.

Speaking screenshots, OS X has some built-in screenshot capabilities that you might find useful at some point.

Use "command shift 3" to take a screenshot of your entire screen. Use "command shift 4" to bring up a targeting reticle; click and drag, releasing will cause a screenshot to be taken of the region that you outline. Use "command shift 4" and then press spacebar to bring up a little camera icon that will shade program windows; clicking will take a screenshot of that window, and will include some shadowing around it.

They're pretty weird shortcuts, but very useful. I probably call them up at least once per week. I don't know that they'll help you to do what you're trying to do, though.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Any bloggers out there? I really like Windows Live Writer, but none of the options for Mac seem to come close to it in terms of functionality. Any suggestions?

I'm not familiar with Windows Live Writer - I looked it up just now and the interface looks like Microsoft Word. I have experience with MacJournal, but not for blogging. It's one of the pricier options, but it's pretty full-featured. There are other blogging clients out there, but I'm not sure of any single one that is designed to handle as many blogging services as MacJournal.

[Guardian Enzo]

Thanks for the tips. What I need is the ability to take many caps (preferably with one key) and disabling the subs 30-40 times per episode to take a cap simply isn't practical for me. With MPC you can choose the key or mouse button to execute the command and set it up so that it doesn't capture the subs.

As for Macjournal, I've looked at it but not closely, as the price scared me off...