---
title: "OSX:  Fixing the \"Green Screen\" issue when capturing your desktop (with Quicktime or other)"
description: "After spending too much time waiting for effects to render on my new (http://www.addohms.com/) I decided it was time to upgrade computers. When I went to capture a quick EAGLE…"
canonical: "https://www.baldengineer.com/osx-fixing-the-green-screen-issue-when-capturing-your-desktop-with-quicktime-or-other.html"
author: "James Lewis"
date: "2013-04-22T20:46:23Z"
lastmod: "2015-04-01T23:16:41Z"
image: "https://www.baldengineer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Green-Screen-Banner.png"
categories: ["software"]
tags: ["mbp","osx","quicktime","retina"]
---

# OSX:  Fixing the "Green Screen" issue when capturing your desktop (with Quicktime or other)


After spending too much time waiting for effects to render on my new [AddOhms Tutorialcast,](http://www.addohms.com/) I decided it was time to upgrade computers.  When I went to capture a quick EAGLE video on my new MacBook Pro with Retina screen, I realized a problem with the Mac's auto graphics chip switch.  Quicktime recorded only a green Screen.

[![Quicktime-Green-Screen.png](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Quicktime-Green-Screen-300x205.png)](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Quicktime-Green-Screen-300x205.png)

## Architecture

The MacBook Pro Retina has two graphics processors.  One is built-in to the Intel CPU while the other is an external chip with significantly more processing power.  When on battery, I usually let the computer decide which need it needs to (hopefully) maximize battery life.

> Note that I am using the phrase "graphics chip."  It really bugs me when people refer to discrete GPUs as "graphics cards."  They aren't cards.  They're chips.

## The Problem

As it turns out, certain applications (like Quicktime--a video focused application) forces the external chip into use.  Which is unfortunate because using the QuickTime "Screen Capture" feature means that your screen captures turn out like the image above:  a blank Green Screen.  (Note:  I tried a couple of versions of the third party app [iShowU](http://www.shinywhitebox.com) and it had the same issue.)

> FYI, [iShowU](http://www.shinywhitebox.com) is what I generally use for capturing video for my tutorials.

## The Solution

While looking at a couple of web forums, two things stuck me:  1) others have the same problem and 2) nobody had found a solution.  Fortunately the few minutes you can't use electronics during a plane's take-off gave me time to think about what could be causing the problem.   I wondered if it might be related to this switchable graphic chip stuff.

Once I was able to turn on in-flight WiFi, I downloaded "[gfxCardStatus](http://gfx.io)" from [gfx.io](http://gfx.io).  This menubar utility has two main functions.  First it gives you a nice Menubar icon to let you know which chip is currently being used.  It also allows you to force which chip is use.  [Despite Apple's recommendations](http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4044 "\"Utilities with the ability to force the use of either the integrated or discrete graphics may not always allow for better battery life and are not recommend by Apple\""), I decided to give it a shot.

[![gfxCardStatus-Screenshot.png](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/gfxCardStatus-Screenshot-300x284.png)](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/gfxCardStatus-Screenshot-300x284.png)

Forcing my MBP-Retina to use the internal chip (in my case Intel HD GPU 4000) I was finally able to record video.