The most difficult pictures to take with the camera have always been screenshots. Screen images are a very important part of BeebMaster and I am very rarely happy with the images produced. The results from the camera are variable in the extreme and some of the pictures I have had to settle for have been downright poor.

I had tried ways of recording the output from the BBC micro, originally onto video recorder, to capture images to use as screenshots. I never got this to work. Using the UHF output on the Beeb produced a very unsatisfactory picture, the composite video output was black-and-white only, and using an RGB-to-SCART lead would not work either. For technical reasons which are beyond me, a video recorder or DVD recorder doesn't seem to be able to pick up the RGB signal produced by the BBC when it's fed in via SCART.

During October and November 2006, I tried to find a way of recording the output from my Domesday Machine onto my DVD recorder so that I could extract images to use as new high-quality screenshots of the Domesday System in operation but, because of the RGB problem I mentioned above, the BBC overlay did not show up.

However, in November 2006 I was told about a little "trick" which can be used to convert the Composite Video output of the BBC from monochrome to full colour. It's ludicrously simple, and it initially allowed me to take full colour images of the Domesday Machine working in situations where the LV-ROM output was not used, such as displaying the Essays or Help Text on the Domesday Discs. I have since used this technique to produce high-quality colour screenshots in other situations, so this will be the way forward.

I hope you will click on the picture links above to learn more; you might even try it out for yourself!

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