Windows 98 Video Screenshot Phenomenon: Why Videos Played in Paint
By
birdculture
Fresh out the oven, still warm. Top of the tray.
Summary
This article explains a peculiar Windows 98 phenomenon where taking a screenshot of a video playing in Windows Media Player and pasting it into Paint would result in the video continuing to play within the Paint application. The technical explanation reveals that this was due to color-keying or chroma-keying technology, where the media player didn't render actual video pixels but used a green screen technique, and when users copied the screen, they were essentially copying the green screen overlay rather than static pixels.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledIn an old version of Windows (Windows 98 iirc) if you took screenshot of a video from media player and paste it into paint, and resume media player, video would play inside paint.
One of the tricks for video playback is to use a green screen, more technically known as color-keying or chroma-keying.
The media player program didn't render the video pixels to the screen.
You copied the green screen.
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