Screencapping 101 - Guide to Rules, Tips & Tricks

[FistyHT]

THE RULES

1. Screencaps and videos ONLY

The Recap threads are for actual screencaps and videos of the Live Feeds, not for mashups, chops or other photo/video manipulations, so please post only undoctored images here. Animated GIFs are also welcome if they are made from the feeds or broadcast show. Commentary, compliments, etc. should be posted in the appropriate discussion threads (example: Love Your Hamster Watchers).

2. No wider than 700 pixels

Please make sure your screencaps are smaller than 700 pixels wide if you are going to make them appear in your posts. This will avoid forcing the board to resize the photo and slowing down load times. If your cap is larger than that and you don't want to make it smaller, just post a link to it instead.

3. Make it safe for work

Please post links, not images, of things that aren't safe for viewing at work (this includes all nudity, extreme cleavage, buttcrack and really anything to do with Boogie's face!). If you're not sure whether the photo is NSFW (not safe for work), it's probably not safe, so just post it as a link. Note in your post that the link is NSFW.

4. Be selective

You may post links to as many photos as you want, but the board will only allow you to display 10 images per post, so choose your screencaps wisely. Variety is good, so please don't post 5 shots of that douchebag dude combing his hair unless there is something disgusting stuck in it. Double posts are allowed in this thread.

5. By posting, you give Fisty permission to use your work

By posting a screencap or video, you give Hamster Time permission to use those products (with credit given to you) on social media sites to promote HT and your work. You retain rights to the work, Fisty just wants to help get eyeballs on it!

 

6. Posting from other sites

If there is a cap you want to share from another site, please LINK to it. Make sure you are giving proper credit to the original screencapper; under no circumstances are you allowed to steal bandwidth by embedding the original photo on HT. It is also in poor form to steal a cap from another site by downloading it to your computer, uploading it to your own host to then embedding it on HT.

If there is a public video from the feeds on YouTube, you may embed that with a link to where you originally found it.

Finally, consider if the cap/video in question belongs in the recap thread or if it would better fit in the General Discussion or individual houseguest threads. (HINT: If it's something you want people to discuss, it's better to put it in the discussion threads than in the recap thread.)

GETTING STARTED

STEP 1: SCREENCAPPING
There are several ways to screencap the live feeds. Let's start with the most basic, which requires no additional software for most computers:

"Print Screen" Method

Find the "print screen" button on your keyboard. It may be labeled "print screen," "PrtScn" or some other combination; you will usually find it located near the "home," "delete," "end," and "insert" buttons on a PC's keyboard. When you press this button, it takes a photo of your entire screen and stores the most recent one on your computer's "clipboard." If you hold down the "Alt" key, if captures only the "active" window.

Most PCs come pre-installed with at least one photo-editing program, such as the basic Paint program on Windows machines. Open Paint or another photo-editing program, if you have a different preference.

Load the live feeds. When you see something worth screencapping, press the Print Screen button. Go to the photo editing program and use the paste option to paste your screenshot. Crop in on the screencap portion of the screenshot and save. It is probably best to save as a .JPEG or .PNG file. (Skip to the "Photo Hosting" section of this guide for your next step.)

Snipping Tool

If you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7, you might have a built-in "Snipping Tool."

Click the Start menu and type "snipping" into the search box. If the "Snipping Tool" program shows up as an option, click it to open. You can move this tool out of your way on the screen.

Load the live feeds. When you see something worth screencapping, click the "New" button and use your cursor to draw round the feeds window on your screen. A preview of the image you captured will appear in the tool, and you can save it. It is probably best to save as a .JPEG or .PNG file.

The downside to this tool is that it's not instantaneous. If there is an exact moment you want to capture on the feeds, you will probably need to rewind the feeds and pause them before hitting the "New" button and taking the capture.

(Skip to the "Photo Hosting" section of this guide for your next step.)

Third-party capturing programs

There are several photo-capturing programs on the market, each with their own pros and cons. For full functionality, most require the purchase of a license at varying costs. Here are a couple:

- TechSmith's Snagit: This program captures photos and video with a great deal of versatility. You can set up the program to capture a specific section of your screen (for example, a section of the lower corner, if that's where you always watch your feeds) at the tap of a button.

Among many features, the program can add time stamps, watermarks, etc. automatically, and it can be made to save screencaps with file names that include the time/date for future reference. Captured video is slightly jerky, but this is a great program for capturing video from the feeds.

TechSmith offers a free trial, and a license costs $49.95.

- Greenshot: This option is free, but only does the most-basic screencapturing. Greenshot operates out of your system tray and can take screenshots by keystroke. This program does not take video and does not automatically add watermarks or timestamps. It is marketed to writers and is best for taking screenshots of static words on a screen.

- A Google search will yield you scads of programs with similar functionality to Greenshot, so take your pick.

Live feed players

In some seasons of BB, various third-party groups have coded live feed players for each specific season. Some have had screen-capturing (but not video-capturing) capability. It seems there are fewer of these players each season as CBS has tightened its grip on the technical end of the feeds. Some of these have had costs associated with them.

 

STEP 2: PHOTO/VIDEO HOSTING

Alright, now that you've taken your screenshots of one of the hamsters falling down or having a wardrobe malfunction, what do you do with it?

First you must choose a photo hosting service to upload your screencaps to. There are many to choose from, and most feature at least a free starter option for a certain amount of "bandwidth" per month. In the context of photo hosting, bandwidth basically refers to the amount of data transferred when a photo loads. When you embed a photo on HT, each time that photo is loaded by a browser (ie, every time someone opens the thread), a certain amount of your allotted "bandwidth" is used. HT is pretty high-traffic so if you post a lot of photos, you could blow through the allotted bandwidth on a free service pretty quickly.

When you hit your cap, you get shut off by the hosting service and your photos won't display until your limit rolls over for the next month.

You can solve this problem by purchasing a subscription (most are fairly cheap, especially if you're only going to subscribe for the few months that BB lasts) or by creating multiple free accounts and rotating through them so your bandwidth isn't all coming from one account.

Here are a few of the common photo/video hosting services:

- PhotoBucket: This service has free and paid options. You can upload by dragging photos and video to an album, then embed or direct-link to them. Free users get 10GB of bandwidth per month (for active screencappers, this is NOT enough to last a whole month on HT).

(Use the "direct link" option on a photo, and then skip to the Posting a Screencap section of this guide for your next step.)

Removing the bandwidth cap costs $2.99 a month, which would be about $9 for the BB season if you don't upgrade until you hit the bandwidth cutoff. Paid accounts also have more storage space and no annoying ads that play each time you load something to an album.

- Flickr: This is a free service that requires a Yahoo ID. It isn't as quick to use as PhotoBucket because you have to click several times before you get the code you need to embed a photo, so it's not best for "gotta post it RIGHT NOW" action shots. (Use the "BB Code" option on a photo, and then skip to the Posting a Screencap section of this guide for your next step.)

- YouTube: This free service requires a Google Account. You can post videos to YouTube and embed them in a post on HT. It is best to use the "Unlisted" privacy setting (NOT the "private" setting, which renders the video invisible to everyone). CBS can be touchy about posting video of the feeds, and some accounts have been suspended during some past seasons. Going "Unlisted" means no one can search for your videos, but you can still share them where you want.

 

STEP 3: POSTING A SCREENCAP

HT uses what is known as BB Code (that stands for "Bulletin Board" not "Big Brother," if you were wondering). If your photo hosting service already let you copy a BB Code link for your screencap, you can go ahead and post that as-is.

If you only have a direct link, you need to use the following code:

 

[img=LINK]

If you post a direct link to a photo, the board will likely pop that photo in without any additional coding necessary.

If you are using an HTML link, which is not recommended on HT, you must click the "Source" box on your post before you submit it.

Remember that only five photos are allowed per post.

TIPS & TRICKS

Add a watermark

You may want to add a watermark to your screencap that includes your screenname and/or "Hamster Time." People have been known to "steal" screencaps and post them on other sites, so at least if you have a watermark included, you're more likely to get credit.

Tell us where/when to find the action

Consider adding the time/date/feed in the post or as a watermark on the image so other feed watchers can find the action you're posting if they want to watch it for themselves.

 

Readers: Give screencappers some love

 

As you can tell from reading this guide, it's not an easy thing to capture screencaps/video. Show some thanks in the Love thread!

 

 

Some other tips and tricks from our members can be found here. Add your own tips and tricks in this thread.

[Tsylyst]

I took some photos during last night's show of the group eating, uploaded them to Flickr, and still couldn't figure out how to get them here, even with the explanation in the FAQ.

 

Once you upload the photo, click on it. In the lower right corner, there is a arrow icon -- click that to bring up a little popup, shown here:

Select the BBCode option, and copy the code that appears in the bottom box.

 

Paste that code into your posting window on HT. If you paste it as-is, you will get an image with some text and a link back to the Flickr page, which really isn't necessary (but fine in a pinch). The code you're looking for is encased in IMG tags, see highlighted here:

 

Delete the rest of the code, and when you post, you then have just the image:

 

Voila!

[FistyHT]

Screencaps and video from the feeds will now be allowed in the live feeds recap threads. There will be no separate thread for screencaps and video.

If you have a screencap or video that you would like to post but it does not fit in the recap thread for some reason (perhaps it is from something that happened earlier in the day/week), please make that clear by adding a timestamp to your post or post it in the General Discussion thread.

The rules listed above have been modified.

[lifeonhold]

Another good free program is Jing. It is very easy to capture any portion of your screen and save the image to your photo folder. From there you would follow Fisty's instructions to have it sized and uploaded for posting. Here is a link to the program; there is a download button in the upper right.

https://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

[cujokay]

Would someone please tell me where to see/watch screencaps & videos from the Live Feeds?  Any pics/videos would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance to anyone that helps. 

 

 

[Tsylyst]

Videos are scarce these days because CBS will go after people's accounts on YouTube and other hosting services. You can find photos all over the place (people are welcome to add photos to their recaps on HT using the tips in this thread, but it's hard these days for the average recapper to get screencaps without third-party programs and hosting, which can cost money). A lot of BB recappers on Twitter post screencaps. Check @BigBrotherLeak, for one.

[krb428]

My god. I went to @BigBrotherLeak, as you suggested, and twitter says two people I follow follow BBL—zefrank and Barack Obama. Trying real hard not to include an emoticon. But trust that I'm emoting.

Edited July 11, 2017 by krb428

[dc20willsave]

As for clips, the CBS Big Brother YouTube will occasionally post something a day or two after.

[artamnesia]

4 hours ago, Tsylyst said:

Videos are scarce these days because CBS will go after people's accounts on YouTube and other hosting services. You can find photos all over the place (people are welcome to add photos to their recaps on HT using the tips in this thread, but it's hard these days for the average recapper to get screencaps without third-party programs and hosting, which can cost money). A lot of BB recappers on Twitter post screencaps. Check @BigBrotherLeak, for one.

I usually upload my videos to youtube and make sure they are "unlisted". That way they don't come up in searches and they are only viewable here on the forum where I've posted them. It worked for me last year. I haven't tried it yet this season.

 

Edited July 11, 2017 by artamnesia

[elizabethann]

Where is Rule #10?  

[Tsylyst]

In the Guidelines linked to at the top of every page: http://www.hamstertime.net/ht/index.php?/guidelines/

[artamnesia]

Is there an issue with embedding Google photos? When I try to add the link, the field turns pink and nothing happens.

I've been using Photobucket for storage for years but they are now behind a paywall and I'm over my limit for free storage.

[Tsylyst]

Can you send me a link to test?

[artamnesia]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6LwRG3HP7ca3w4679

 

[Tsylyst]

I'd say first of all that looks like a link to an album and not to a photo. But also, there is nothing on it that gives me an embed code. Google might not allow it.