Snagit And The Curse Of The Black Screen
Posted on May 11, 2008
Filed Under Snagit Features, Video
Have you ever tried to capture video with Snagit but instead of getting the video you end up with a black or grey screen?
The problem is actually not related to Snagit but usually due to graphics hardware acceleration being used to display the image/video.
Newer media players normally use graphics hardware acceleration on your system.
Read on to see how to solve this…
Graphics hardware performs a “hardware overlay” of video on the screen, which bypasses the normal Windows display memory that Snagit captures.
Most video capture programs which capture video from a video camera use “hardware overlay” by default for their video preview. This problem affects all screen capture programs, and even the image put in the clipboard by the Print Screen key.
The solution is to disable any hardware acceleration in the application that is playing the video or disable hardware acceleration system wide. Because this affects all applications on the system, it may cause performance problems for some applications and some applications may not run at all.
How to disable graphics hardware acceleration globally for all applications
Windows XP or 2000: Right-click on the desktop and select Properties > Settings > Advanced > Troubleshoot. Set the Hardware acceleration slider to None.
On other versions of Windows: Select Control Panel > System > Performance tab > Graphics > Advanced settings. Set the Hardware acceleration slider to None.
I hope this little guide was helpful.
Until next time 
Peter – Your Snagit Guide
Related posts:
- Audio in Video Clip – Problem
- Snagit Scrolling Window NOT Working
- Camtasia Screen Recorder Software 10 Year Anniversary
- Recording Video with Audio in Snagit
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Hi Peter,
I didn’t know that Snag-it could capture video. Can it capture the last 20 keystrokes or something to that effect?
Gita
Hello Gita,
It can capture all that happens on screen, so in effect it could capture keystrokes that are written one way or another, but you couldn’t use it as an application logging key strokes on your computer.
I hope that answered your question.
Best,
Peter
When I try capturing video, the video stands stills at a random part and I get a still capture or frame from the video. I hope that works for me, I did not knoe it could capture video and I have just suggested it for the “9th” version wishlist!
I turned the acceleration to none but when I try to reaccess Intervideo Windvd 5 (I ran out of the free trial so I can’t capture images anymore) or Windows Media Player 10, I still get a black screen image when I capture. Any suggestions?
So that was it? This problem has been plaguing us since we invested in SnagIt 1.5 years ago. Always thought it was a limitation with the software and left it at that.
Worked perfectly for both Snagit and Camtasia. Much thanks. It appears that hardware accelerators and some software accelerators (used by individual programs) can place images in a layer separate from the actual screen image, which is what all screen capture software actually capture. Snagit and Camtasia worked fine for all other purposes until I attempted to capture screen video from a psychology research program we wrote in Python that places two separate video clips on the screen side by side. One of the clips would be captured and one would be blank. Reducing the hardware acceleration by 2 steps solved the problem. Unfortunately, I had faced the same problem about a year and a half ago on a laptop, and forgotten about the problem and solution. It seems like my chimp friends have better memories than I do.
Hello Peter,
I downloaded the trail Ver. of Snagit 9.0.2
when scrolling down in a pdf larg file, the image output in the editor is like slices. I am not able to get one complete image.
how can you help.
Thank you
Eitan
THIS WORKED! I had an audio and video problem before (see the audio section here).
I would take a video capture, and I would get a black screen, or the image would be off-centered and half-black etc (same with video captures).
I don’t have the hardware accelerator at zero, I slid it only to half-way, and I can capture everything with GOM now.
Oh, I USE GOMPLAYER, and it is the best video/audio player I think, and it’s 100% free.
I was worried it was a cheap video card, GOM, or something wrong with Snagit, it’s not any of these.
Snagit has been dead-on accurate twice for me on these help pages. Read carefully and try it.
Hi, I have this problem recently with Snagit and Camtasia as well. I have been use it for several years but this problem just come up suddently. I have tried many suggestions onthe web but nothing works. Suddenly, in a certain case it works and then it doesn’t work again. Finally! I found out the problem is created by IE . Normally, I had my IE open all the time on my desktop. After closing the IE and then try again, they just work fine and that problem is solved. I suppose there is somethign to do with the security settiung on the DIRECTX in the IE but I had found out how to properly set it, so I just made sure I am not using IE at the same time as Snagit or Camtasia. I hope this may help.
Herrick
I’ve had trouble with this black box video output with sound and did what you suggested and it still has the same issue. Now I get all these windows pop ups about other applications not running and my virus scanner can’t do anything at this point either. I had to change the settings back for the computer to function properly including going online (I waited 10 minutes to connect then gave up and restarted in safe mode).
Seems like the video capturing/recording issue is mostly when I try to capture live streams from
windows media oriented players. Everything else works perfectly. Anyone have any other suggestions?
Nothing is stupid..doesn’t hurt to try..
–Paulette
i’m using snagit 5.1.1 there’s a problem recording video. it allows me to “record” meaning: switching between windows, it even shows my arrow. but then when i try to record a video … it stops working or it seems to just be a still image with audio. What do i have to do? I tried lowering my hardware accelerator, but it still doesn’t work. I’m worried that if i set my hardware accelerator to “none” it will harm my computer? I’m not too good with computers. can someone please help?
thanks
Hello,
For video problems the suggestion that you refer to will certainly fix the problem. You can trun down the hardware acceleration without any worries, there is no problem setting this to zero. You may not be able to play games, but you can adjust it up again when not recording video with Snagit if you wish.
I am having the black screen issue with both Snagit and Camtasia. I set Hardware Acceleration to none and tried Firefox instead of IE, but the problem persists. Not sure what to try next.
The black screen problem is not based on browser, but your graphics card. So it should not matter which browser or if you capture images on another think on your computer. Try updating your graphics drivers to begin with.
I’ve been having the same problem of “black screen” whenever I try to capture anything in any mode while either IE or Firefox is open. If neither IE or Firefox are open then the capture works fine.
Any thoughts ? using Snagit 9.1.3 (build 19)
I forgot to mention in my last post/reply that I tried every which way with the hardware acceleration and my video/graphics drivers are updated as well.
The problem for me was with Zonealarm Extreme. NOW FIXED.I am able to use SnagIt 9.1.3 by changing my Zonealarm Extreme Security suite 9.1.008’s Forcefield’s browser security settings/Advanced/uncheck “block programs that secretly record your keystrokes”.
I have not had any SnagIt issues since ! THIS WORKS 100%, All the advice & tricks related to hardware acceleration were totally useless…..
Not Browser or video related – happens from PoweerPoint as well. Turning off hardware acceleration had no effect. Seems to be a problem with trying to capture too many pixels – anything above 800 X 800 results in a black screen. Same if either width or height is too large, but I didn’t quantify it through trial and error. I looked in the Help for some indication of a size limitation before I came here, but didn’t find anything through a reasonable search.