Your YouTube screenshot is black because you screenshotted the wrong layer

Short summary

Hardware-accelerated video doesn't paint into the same surface as the rest of the browser window, so PrintScreen yields a black rectangle. The fix is to use canvas drawImage on the <video> element directly, reading the decoded frame at full resolution via videoWidth/videoHeight. The author also ships a Chrome extension (Screenshot for YouTube) that wraps this approach with player UI integration, clipboard support, and DRM-error handling.

• •Black screenshots happen because hardware-accelerated video uses a separate rendering surface
• •Use canvas drawImage(video) to capture the actual decoded frame at native resolution
• •Watch for DRM-protected streams (drawImage throws), clipboard PNG-only constraint, and user-gesture requirements

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.