Magazine Screenshots.

[HaHaUK]

How do magazines get such crisp screenshots?
They cant be taking a picture of the screen while theyre playing right?

Do they have like a special screenshot machine linked up to the tv?

[babs]

In a word, yes

(well, a special box/grabber depending on hardware)

[Wil]

We used to have it set up on the spacebar and have the keyboard on the floor so you could just tap it with your foot as you were playing.

[Duddyroar]

In the early days (1980s-early 1990s) it was a case of taking photos in a darkened room and hoping the game in question had a good pause mode. A few of the chaps I interviewed for the Mean Machines Archive commented on this rather crude method - but as Richard Leadbetter said, taking photos this way resulted in a closer representation of what the game would look like (these photos had scan lines, as you would get on a telly, and the picture wasn't being filtered through a computer). Personally I prefered these old screenshots too, they just looked so good, I was amazed they were taken using such an out-dated method.

By the time Mean Machines Sega appeared, screenshots were taken with special machines and IMO these early images looked awful. Colours were too bright, the games looked really blocky and it didn't represent what you would actually see on the screen. But I imagine it saved the reviewers a heck of a lot of time!