External Display Won't Recognize in Native Resolution

I have a 40" Sony Bravia 1080p TV. I'm currently hooking it up using mini display adapter to vga, then vga into the PC port in the TV.
Display preferences recognizes the TV as a VGA display. which is fine, however it won't display in the 1920 x 1080 60HZ setting.
Sometimes display preferences recognizes the external display (TV) as a SONY TV. When this happens, it allows me to select a 1080p setting, which works great.
Does anyone know why my mac recognizes the external display as VGA display one time, then a SONY TV the next?
is there any way to manually set what type of external display is hooked up?
It's not a huge issue, but it's frustrating, and i don't understand it.
Any help is appreciated!

Probably the TV needs to be turned on before the Mac. And when the Sony is switched away from the TV to another input and then switched back to VGA, that's probably when the Mac loses connection to the TV's identity.
You could try the Detect Displays command when that happens, or else try unplugging and replugging the the VGA connector. That's a pain but it might work.
If you want a real permanent solution, something like the Gefen DVI Detective will work. It was designed to fix problems like this.

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