Screenshots

This article is aimed for providing useful information regarding adding screenshots to your description and the software used.

Adding screenshots to your description is generally preferred, and usually requested as it's meant to preview the video and subtitle quality for the torrent. For that reason when taking screenshots they must be in source resolution, PNG (lossless) format unless the video is anamorphic in which case they need to be in display aspect ratio.

Taking Screenshots

They can be made with most recent video players, but we generally recommend MPC, KMplayer or VLC player.

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC)

This player comes bundled in CCCP.

If configured correctly it takes screenshots with a key combination Alt+I.
After that it gives you a Save As output where you choose the path and the picture format.

To take screenshots with subtitles in MPC-HC with Alt+I, subtitles must be being rendered by an intermediate filter before the video renderer. You can use DirectVobSub/VSFilter or FFDShow subtitle rendering, but it's much better to use DirectVobSub/VSFilter for subtitles, which can be configured as follows:

1) DirectVobSub/VSFilter(note: they are the same thing) needs to be present on your computer. (Included in CCCP and in K-Lite Standard pack and above)
2) In MPC-HC, make sure that the 'Auto-load subtitles' option is not ticked. (View-> Options-> Playback)
3) (Windows 7) Add DirectVobSub(auto-loading version) to 'External Filters' in MPC-HC (View-> Options-> External Filters) and set it as 'Prefer.'
4) Make sure that FFDShow Video Decoder's subtitle option is not enabled.
5) Make sure that you use a video output (View->Options->Output) that is capable of taking a screenshot.

• By default, CCCP already does this.

• This player takes screenshots in storage aspect ratio, which means that for anamorphic videos these screenshots need to be resized with external software such as Gimp or Photoshop so that the image doesn't appear distorted.

KMplayer

This is a powerful freeware player which by default utilises it's own internal codecs for video and displaying subtitles.

Download the latest stable release because the screenshot feature doesn't work well with external filters needed for styled subs in the latest beta.
This player also needs to be tweaked to display styled subs properly.

After the external filters are enabled, to take screenshots you have to set them to Draw to Image Itself Alt+M and in preferences you need to set filetype and capture path.

Open Preferences (F2)
Association/Capture -> Capture (tab) -> Choose your save path and filetype.

Screenshots are taken with Ctrl+E or Ctrl+A (quick Capture)
For Anamorphic video you can take "What You See" screenshot Ctrl+Alt+E or Ctrl+Alt+A but be careful not to resize the video or take them while the video is in fullscreen.

SMPlayer

Open Preferences (Options -> Preferences)
General -> General -> Screenshots -> change folder to your preference
Subtitles -> Subtitles -> check "Include subtitles on screenshots"

Screenshots are taken by pressing 's'. If the video is paused, the screenshot will not be created until you unpause.

VLC Player

This is a portable, open source, standalone player which is still generally not recommended by BakaBT community unless it's a last resort.

It doesn't need to be tweaked, and the latest build can display some degree of styled subs properly. Screenshots are taken with Shift+S and they are taken in display aspect ratio for anamorphic videos as well.

Hosting Images

You probably want to use our image server. If for some reason that doesn't suit you, take a look at these other options:

You must host your own images. Do not hotlink images. Take a look at some of the approved uploads to get an idea of what is needed before a torrent can be approved.

• Note: Screenshots should be taken in PNG format, at the correct resolution. If the video is anamorphic, make sure screenshots are taken at display aspect ratio and resolution.
• Note 2: At least 1 shot has to show the subtitles with the style defined in the release. Click here for more detailed info.

It is recommended that you use our image hosting server BakaSHOTS as it is the most compatible with our site. Furthermore, we won't have dead screenshots when images are pruned on other hosting sites. To use BakaSHOTS just sign in using your BakaBT account.

If for some reason that doesn't suit you, PhotoBucket is an acceptable alternative.

• Note: While PhotoBucket does offer free accounts, you must use an account with a purchased subscription. The free accounts will generate a watermark over top all linked images.

Image Hosts You Shouldn't Use

• ImageShack - Resizes and degrades image quality after an unknown amount of time. Still useful for comments and temporarily uploading images before transferring them to BakaSHOTS.
• Imgur - According to their "Terms of Service" hotlinking to torrent sites is prohibited.

Adding Screenshots

Adding these tags will not do anything to your description, instead it will add screenshots just below your description using a lightbox viewer for easy viewing. If using HTML code, screenshot tags may be placed inside or outside the <html></html> tags, there is no difference in parsing either way.

[screenshot]screenshot code goes here[/screenshot]

Inserts screenshot thumbnails below the description. Thumbnails are resized to 150 pixels in width by default.

[screenshot=200]screenshot code goes here[/screenshot]

Inserts screenshot thumbnails 200 pixels wide below the description. Change 200 to the pixel width of your screenshot thumbnails as necessary.

You can add more than one block of screenshots, possibly with different size thumbnails.

[img]link to image[/img]

Will add one image. You can add as many as you like.

[url=link to image][img]link to thumbnail[/img][/url]

Allows you to explicitly define your own thumbnail images. If no thumbnail image is supplied it will use the linked image and resize it to whatever width is supplied for the thumbnail.

NOTE: Screenshots will not show up in the Sandbox; you have to go to the torrent description page in order to view them.

If thumbnail images are not used, the big images are loaded first, then resized to thumbnail-size on your screen. This makes image-loading really slow, and also make scrolling laggy, so as far as possible supply thumbnail images or use an image-host that auto-generates them.

BakaSHOTS Images

For details on how to insert images hosted on BakaSHOTS into descriptions, please see here: BBCode#BakaSHOTS.