iShowU Pro Green Screen

So I recently spent a good while recording an incredible screen cast for some documentation I need to create. After finally finishing the recording I was dismayed to find that iShowU had recorded nothing but a GREEN SCREEN. That elicited some colorful language, even if it was just in my head. What the heck happened??!

Well, it turns out that this fabulous Macbook Pro I have has 2 graphics chips. 1 of them happens to be more power hungry and so if you have taken your laptop into a quiet room away from your wall charger (which is what I did) that it automatically switches to the external, less power hungry processor to save energy, which means you record green. And then red with anger later.

To fix this and never have it happen again there is a wonderful open source (heck yeah!) gfxCardStatus app that gives you the power to tell your Mac to record the real screen, thank you very much.

Install that and you’ll be able to select which video card to use even if you’re not plugged into the wall. Simply select integrated only from the new gfxCardStatus icon in your toolbar and you’re ready to record.