I am using a Power Macintosh AV system and I want to capture a frame of video played through avideo camera connected to the AV card.

I connected a video camera with RCA jacks to the S-video/RCA adapter and plugged the adapter into the S-video IN port. I then ran the Video Monitor application and it came up with a message "cannot digitize video with current number of colors". I tried setting the number of colors down from 256 to 16, 4, and 1 but I could not get it to work.

Use of the HDI-45 connector on any of the Power Mac AV systems without a monitor attached to the AV card is not recommended. The Monitor control panel will automatically assume that a device is attached to the video out on the AV card and the result is what has commonly been described as a ghost monitor.

There are several problems associated with this anomaly which you may encounter:

• Moving the menu bar inadvertently to the ghost monitor in the Monitors control panel. Once this has been done you will need to connect a monitor into the AV Card in order to restore normal video. This is an issue for anyone using the AudioVision monitor which does not have an adapter cable.
• Viewing full-screen video in when using the Video Monitor application causes the computer to move the image to the ghost monitor. Returning to a half or quarter-screen window will not restore it back to normal. Quitting and restarting the machine will not restore the Video Monitor window either. This will prevent you from being able to view the video you wish to capture.
• Windows, files, or folders may be inadvertently moved to the ghost monitor. Once moved to the ghost monitor they are difficult to recover without attaching a monitor into the AV card.

WORKAROUND

Attempting to capture a frame of video and save it as a PICT file while running off of the HDI-45 connector is possible, but difficult and not recommended. The built-in digitizer will not work if the ghost monitor is set to millions of colors. Do the following to change the bit depth:

1. Open the Monitors control panel. You will notice that there appears to be two monitors displayed side by side even though you only have one monitor attached to the HDI-45 connector.

2. Click on the 2nd monitor (the one labeled 2 without the menu bar) so that it is highlighted.

3. Change the bit depth of the ghost monitor to something less than millions.

4. Open the Preference folder within the System Folder and throw the Video Monitor Preferences file into the trash.

5. Launch the Video Monitor application and you should be able to capture a frame of video and save it as a PICT file using the Copy command.