is it possible to take screenshots of console games the legal way (aka NOT with an emulator) ?

Sure

I have!

Of course they come out interlaced to HELL most of the time, but I'm getting there!

I've done a few too, but I don't have a video card with the capabilities of capturing straight from the console. The way I do it is kind of rigged up, I record the game with my DVD recorder and then capture screens from the DVD to my computer. I am not totally pleased with the quality, but it turns out alright.

Example

that's actually a good idea. with some more muscle it could be pretty damn good I imagine.

We should probably suggest that as a viable option - DVD recorders are much more common now than they were back when the standards were made...

That's actually a very good, and cheap, way to do it. Not to mention it won't take up 2 GB of data for a minute of video, like my capture card likes to do.

Have you tried to record at the lowest compression possible? A friend used his DVD Recorder to transfer concert tapes to DVD and they turned out fine.

Yeah, I use the highest recording quality available. I record in XP mode which is something like 60-some minutes (or close to that) of record time on a full DVD.

The most problem I had was finding a decent program to capture the screens from the DVD without paying any money for it. I was using a pretty good program, but my trial period ran out on it and I didn't want to buy it for $50. Right now I am using AV Video Morpher which provides decent enough results.

... Buh? I just use a standard video player like Media Player Classic to play the disc off my PC's DVD drive, using the deinterlace feature. Then I just save BMP screenshots. :)

I don't have classic though, I have the newest version which doesn't allow for screen captures for some reason... unless I am mistaken...

I own no DVD recorder and no motion capturing card, i'm unable to do screenshots - except for PC games ... but it's allowed to make screenshots via emulations for example for Commodore 64 games, or isn't it ??

Most of the shots for consoles are taken from emulators. It's fine!

That is, if the system is well emulated! You probably won't find problems with older systems, but we know that newer systems have some unsolved emulation issues.

You can use Windows Movie Maker.

Some times you have to turn down your hardware acceleration in order to take screenshots from videos.

I don't have classic though

it is available for free if you care to check it out.

Media Player Classic is an opensource alternative to Windows Media Player.

You can also use VideoLAN (Videolan.org).

I just downloaded it. Works pretty well. I might start using this. Thanks for the info!