Those of us who take captures from DVDs, what video player do you use?

I use PowerDVD (version 5.0), I usually have it set on the Vivid colour profile. This often brings out a nice amount and brightness and vibrance of the picture, although sometimes it can be a little too bright and the colour come out a little too strong (especially with cartoons).

In recent MPC versions the colours are "normal", i.e. how they should appear (unlike previous versions were they were not vivid enough).
But now for DVDs I use WinDVD which has a little better colors, I guess it does a slight color correction.
I do not think that it is good to apply a too big change to images, as it changes how they look in the original movie. Maybe it looks better, but it is not the original...

I use VLC Media Player... quite good

PowerDVD has four settings, Vivid, Theatre, Original and Bright. I never use Bright, Theatre is just duller and darker than vivid (can is sometimes too much but usually looks good) and original is very dull. I've only changed to Theatre with some King of the Hill captures because certain colour were too bright with Vivid. Vivid usually offers a more pleasing viewing experience, in fact I don't think Theatre or Original are actually "original" they just make the picture a bit dull.

Original look more original... if the movie picture is supposed to look dark or dull it is normal that the pics look like that.

I've only used Media Player Classic. It seems to work well and it was free.
My only gripe is not being able to advance a single frame at a time in the reverse direction. Do the others allow you to do this?

Indeed for DVDs it is unfortunately not possible. One of the reasons why I use WinDVD for that (though that even there it jumps few frame at a time when going backwards)

I use, WinDVD Platinum ...

Isn't the whole point of DVD that it looks better than the original film (as in cellulod)?

it is supposed to keep the movie the closest to the original one, i.e. without loosing as much details and quality as what VHS looses.

Films are often re-mastered for DVD. With some films some people complain that brightening up the film spoil the original gloomy, low-budget realism effect (like with Withnail and I), but with many films the DVD transfer improves the overall visual and sound quality of the film.

With PowerDVD I think it's designed to have "Vivid" as a default mode, I don't think the Theatre and Original setting are actually "original" they just tone down the vividness and brightness a little.

Does PowerDVD allow the frame-by-frame advancing in the reverse direction like antp has said WinDVD does?

I think I am finally fed up with the lack of this feature in Media Player Classic that I may break down and buy one. It seems you can get a bargain on PowerDVD on eBay, but no bargains on WinDVD. Any input on which would be better?

In WinDVD it is not true frame-by-frame backwards, it usually go back few frames as I said (up to 1 second in worse case, but this is still better than the normal jumps of MPC)