Getting mac min to look good on Sony Wega 30" HDTV CRT (KV-30HS420

Got a new mac mini (Intel 1.83 GHz) and am hooking it up to a Sony Wega 30" HDTV CRT (model no. KV-30HS420) using an DVI to HDMI cable. No problems selecting input and getting an image, but at 1280 x 720 the desktop looks horrible. Turning off "overlace" gets all of my desktop back in view, but everything is blurry and it is simply not acceptable for my 78 year old father.
Is it simply not possible to get a descent image on this set? Should I just opt for buying him a wide screen flat panel display?
Please advise.
--ron

Unfortunately a CRT-based HDTV is never going to look very good when used as a computer monitor. You will probably need to get a nice LCD TV for your father.
How far away will he sit from the TV? Even if the screen were clear, as it will be with an LCD, there are still limits to what can be seen when you are too far away. Keep that in mind.

Similar Messages

Does the Mac Mini work well with a Sony 50" SXRD HDTV?

I would like to purchase a Mac Mini and use it as a home theatre PC for my tv. I have a Sony 50" SXRD Grand WEGA Model # KDS-R50XBR1 tv. I will connect the Mac Mini to the tv via a DVI-to-HDMI cable. I want to make sure the Mac Mini can support this size screen at full native resolution which is 1920x1080. Any help, comments, or suggestions will be very helpful!
Thanks.
Home Built Windows XP

jayschr
Thank you for posting on this specific topic. The combination of a Sony KDS-R50XBR1 & a Mac Mini is a keen interest & current distraction in my life.
To this point, I can confirm that out of the box the Mini will reliably support a max 16:9 resolution of 1280x720, when connected to this TV via DVI-to-HDMI, albeit with over-scan (all edges off screen by a distracting degree). Display quality at this resolution is clear/readable (although some text may have some minor distortion or artifacts). Alternatively, connecting via DVI-to-VGA (PC 8) provides a crisper display, however (confirming pg 100 in the tv's manual) the Sony limits to the same 1280x720 resolution. Via this input the image has under-scan (black bands [letter & pillar box) all edges ~2"). Obviously, given the published specs of both devices, this is sub-optimal. That unfortunately is the straight forward answer to your question.
This lack of out-of-the-box native compatibility is not unique to the XBR. I have confidence that those more qualified than me, may be able to prescribe a pixel for pixel solution/work around. Throughout this forum, many informative posts have been generously/gratiously contributed by those in support of Mac Mini/HDTV harmony, quite often leading to success.
Significant among these have been contributors such as BSteely. I am both encouraged to see that BSteely has replied to your post, and concerned by the words of caution. I'm hopeful that this thread will continue to develop, ultimately leading to an optimal solution for this pairing.
There are many indications that a full native resolution of 1920x1080 should be possible. The Mini's display settings will recognize this particular Sony and register 1920x1080 (interlaced) as an example. However selecting this will cause the display to go black. This apparently is an out of the box limitation of the Mini, as my 17" PowerBook will display/maintain this setting (again with over-scan). So far I have not found the alternate settings (including those registered by the PowerBook) & techniques posted elsewhere in this forum to be effective when adapted to the Mini/XBR.
Please note that my primary objectives (equally weighted) going into this were;
1) getting on the HDTV bandwagon, by purchasing what I believed to be the best combination of technology/quality/future proofing/price. Regardless of how the Mini might ultimately perform when connected, I'm very happy with this set as a TV (Although the 1080p capability via 1080i input continues to confuse).
2) connecting a Mini I had purchased last summer, to a large digital display. The obvious & elegant manner in which a Mini can be integrated into a home theater/home network, is (I can attest) truly compelling.
Although I have yet to find the holy grail we both may be seeking, in a world where any thing seems possible, I remain optimistic.
Stay tuned here & elsewhere
SB
17 PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Are Mac Mini refurbs a good deal? Relaible?

Are Mac Mini refurbs a good deal? Relaible?

I've purchased three minis, two Mac Pros, two MacBooks and a MacBook Pro as refurbs. They have been just as reliable, if not more reliable, than buying new. It was said before: you get the same warranty and AppleCare options as if you were buying new. I would not purchase a refurb from anyone but Apple though. There can be some side benefits too, you just have to be lucky I guess. One of the minis I ordered was only supposed to have an 80GB hdd and 1GB RAM, when it was delivered, I was delighted to see that it had a 120GB hdd and 2GB RAM. One of the Mac Pros was supposed to have the 7300GT card but shipped with the 1900XT upgrade. I called Apple to see if there was some mistake, but was told not to worry about it.
I would recommend buying a refurb if you are comfortable with it.
D.

Mac Mini or iMac good for graphic apps?

I currently have an older G4, dual processor, 450 MHz, 768mb RAM running Tiger. I'm a graphic designer working mainly with Quark, Freehand, Photoshop. I'm not a heavy Photoshop user. I'm trying to decide if I should upgrade to a G5 tower, or if the new iMacs or Mac Mini would work for me. I've heard that the Mac Mini could be a step backwards for my type of use. Any informed opinions would greatly help. Obviously speed is not my number one concern, but I wouldn't want to be slower! I do have an external CD/DVD burner and I need to keep my external ZIP drive.
Thanks,
Kristi

The Mac Mini may not be good for your use (Intel Macs in gerneral) do not have a native version of Photoshop (PPC only app so it would run under PPC emulation), so unless you have 1+GB RAM it would run slow, not as slow as on your current machine though so you might not notice the way some others might. The Mac Mini (even the core solo 1.5Ghz) will be much faster than your current machine, any modern Mac would be.I would go for an iMac since it, IMO, is going to be a better buy, since it doesn't cost that much more, and is a top of the line consumer machine. If you don't do much Photoshoping the G5 Power Mac is overkill, IMO. You may even want to look at refurb G5 iMacs if you want to save a little money.

Mac Mini stuck looking for Windows Boot Disk! Please help

Hi all, I've been running Leopard on my Mac Mini off a FireWire hard drive enclosure. The 750gb hard drive in the enclosure is a drive I used to have in my old iMac.
When I had my iMac I'd installed Windows via Bootcamp. So when running, the Mac Mini would show a Windows partition on the Leopard desktop. Today I needed to do something in Windows. so I went to Sys Prefs > Startup Disk and chose to reboot into that Windows partition. BIG MISTAKE
Now whenever I turn the Mini on it looks for a Windows partition and tells me it can't find one. I've tried resetting the PMU, booting from Leopard DVD, holding Option, nothing works. The only thing that will work is if I put a Windows XP disk in and it will try and take me through the install process.
How on earth do I get my Mac back booting into Leopard!?
Message was edited by: Thomas Robinson

I can't believe it was just the new Apple thin Alu Keyboard causing it! Plugged in an old Apple USB one and I got the Option startup menu straight away, totally bizarre!

Can't get MAC MINI HDMI to consistently display on TV monitor

My new MAC mini is connected to a new HD Samsung TV. Initially had problem showing HD movies because I had Mini connected via VGA. Purchased appropriate connection for HDMI and HD movies show great, for a while. Appears that sometimes zhen the mini sleeps, monitor doesn't see mini with HDMI connection. When I switch back to VGA, the monitor once again sees the mini. Recently HDMI was working great until I downloaded updated software, and now once again monitor doesn't see HDMI, only sees moni when I reconnect via VGA. I've checked all connections many times and can't find the issue. Looking for any assistance.
THANKS

Update: Got the HDMI working again. Since I couldn't see mini mac with HDMI, hooked up VGA and restarted. While mac mini was restarting, changed connection to HDMI and low and behold, the monitor saw the mini in HDMI. Don't know if that's the optimum way.... but it worked.

How can I get Mac Mini to accept bootable installers for Mountain Lion ? They work fine on MB-Pro

I've had a Mac Mini (late 2012) for the past week and need to do a complete reinstall to get rid of very mucked up Server.app settings that I can't get rid of even though I uninstalled Server.app and what I thought were all of its Library files. I need to get the Mac Mini back to pristine, factory default to start over. Then I'll be able to put Server.app into a VM so I can trash it if need be without mucking up the rest of my system.
I have both a bootable recovery partition on an external hard drive (My Book firewire) and a USB bootable installer with a fresh edition of Mountain Lion. I know the USB installer works just fine because I used it to do a clean install of my MacBook-Pro just last night. Went like a charm.
When I start up the Mac Mini with the option key held down, everything seems fine -- I see both the USB drive and the My Book's 2 volumes (1 for data, 1 for the Recovery partition). But when I select either the USB drive or the My Book Recovery partition as the start-up drive, I get a screen with a circle with a line across (the no-entry traffic sign), with no way to go back or forward. So the computer has to be rebooted.
Any suggestions as to how to get the Mac Mini to recognize bootable installers that MacBooks are able to see?

Late 2012 Mac mini uses a special Mountain Lion version that it's only compatible with this Mac and you can only get on Internet Recovery because it's not available in the App Store. If you want to reinstall Mountain Lion, press Command, Option and R keys while your computer is starting

Mac Mini full screen on a Sony KDF-E42A10

I just purchased a Mac Mini and have been unable to have it display on the full-screen. It either appears to large with Overscanning on or with a black border around the entire screen. I've downloaded SwitchResX for custom resolution setting, but I can't find what the setting should be for the Sony KDF-E42A10. Does anyone know these settings?

I have posted the solution to the problem here:
http://beyondabstraction.net/2007/04/12/more-kdf-e42a10-info-this-time-with-a-ma c-mini/
The settings for SwitchResX are posted there.

Help getting mac mini and canon printer set up on network

Hello,
I have a Canon pixma ip4000 printer and mac mini 1.66 duo OSX 10.4. Trying to get these to print on a network.
Canon was originally hooked up to a windows xp pro box, but mac wouldn't print to it.
Bought a print server (buffalo lpv3-u2) and can't get it to work either. Whether I connect through bonjour or apple talk, I can see and connect to the printer, but either the job just sits in the queue "ready to print," or, more often, soon after starting the job it gets stopped. Restarting it means it just gets stopped again.
I have tried canon drivers, guten-print, and printfab. None work.
Printer works just fine if it's connected directly to the mac.
Windows PC's print to printer through the print server just fine. Why won't the mac "just work?"
It seems like it would be more economical just to buy another printer for the mac and be left wondering why the mac wouldn't play nice with others.
Oh, well,
Thanks for any help you can offer!!
David

I'm surprised you manage to get any print via the print server. I previously tested a Netgear and D-Link print server connected to a Canon iP6000D and couldn't get the Canon drivers to work. The only option was to use Gutenprint, and at the time there was no iP models so the S800 was the best compromise. The only 'print server' I found that would work with the Canon drivers was an Airport Extreme Base Station, which I am still using to this day.
Re the quirky, this is not just a Canon issue, other vendors have the same issue when you configure the printer the way you have. The way to avoid it is to purchase the right product for the job - finding what is right is often the problem. For the record, Canon makes a number of BJ and Laser printers with wired, and in some cases wireless, network support. These devices therefore have drivers that have been designed to work on a network, unlike the drivers you currently have. At work I have an iP5200R, which I connect to from XP using Ethernet, and I also connect to with my MacBook Pro using Airport (wireless). No driver connection issues, full driver support with status feedback and no need to have the XP PC on in order to print.

What does the new mac mini really look like? raised or not?

looking at the images on the mac mini page http://www.apple.com/macmini/ it clearly shows the mini with it's front edge resting on the ground in all the images from the front. the reflections touch. but when you follow the 'Design' link it shows that the new mini is resting on a raised foot, so it floats.
i'm pretty sure the floating version is the real version, but why the inconsistency?

it's not an optical illusion. it's just wrong in the images. i agree with the people who made the illustrations, it looks better when it's flat on the ground and not floating.
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/16/mac-mini-mid-2010-teardown-photos/
that gives you a better idea of what the new mac mini looks like from the front in a similar angle to the images on apples site. notice the very large gap between the reflection and the front face of the mini. also notice the large black shadow caused by the mini being raised up on the black circular foot on it's base. There isn't an angle that you you can move the camera to that would eliminate the shadow or distance between the reflection and the case and still see the front face as you do in the images.
it's just an odd inconsistency that misrepresents what the final product looks like.

How do I get mac mini to run faster?

I have had my mac mini for a couple of years and it is starting to fun just a little slower. Was wondering if there is anything I can do to speed things up a bit?

Mac troubleshooting: What to do when your computer is too slow | Macworld

Mac Mini behaves poorly through DVI at 1920x1080 on HDTV displays

I recently purchased a Samsung LN-S4695D - a 46" LCD TV capable of 1080p with HDMI and VGA inputs. I've had been using my 23" Cinema Display + a Mac Mini G4 + Rotel Amp as the centerpieces of my Home Theater, and decided to change out the display to accommodate a gaming system and perhaps some other digital or component inputs (and, of course, nab a larger viewing surface). It seems like a fairly standard use of the Mini, but unfortunately many of us are running into disappointing results using our Minis as connected to an HDTV display. I'm writing here to see if we can clear up the issue with the mini and to attempt to identify reasonable workarounds or solutions until Apple gets the Mini right for HD home theater.
The current problem with the Mini and the Samsung TV/Display is that when the Mini is connected via DVI-HDMI (with a Monster 400 2m cable) to the display and asked to run at 1920x1080 (60hz NTSC) it does a reasonable job until it is required to refresh a lot of pixels (scrolling through album art in iTunes, playing DVD or other video, etc.). At that point, the screen fills with bands of static, and (if the rate of change is sustained) eventually looses the signal all together. With heavy scrolling operations, the signal returns as soon as scrolling stops, but with full-screen video it usually stays out until the mac resets its video resolution. Another article shows examples of this "DVI static" here:
http://www.freewebs.com/themagius/minidvipics.htm
So it is clear that the Mini and HDTVs don't play well at 1080 resolutions, as many of you have attested to. The samsung seems to do a better job than most with the Mini in that it it actually renders the 1080 as well as other resolutions, but flakes out on fast updates. While some other resolutions are also problematic, it is important to note that 1280x720 runs flawlessly on the Samsung, and is currently how I have mine set up (VGA input was too disappointing compared to DVI, though it scanned great and fit the image w/o over/underscanning.). Also, my Powerbook G4 1.25ghz (older than the mini) powers the Samsung perfectly at 1920x1080 as a secondary display, running DVD video or anything else that I throw at it, which leads me to believe that the mini is the problem. Here is another story very similar to mine that reports almost the same results with a Sharp LCD panel:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=5940932
So I've three sets of questions for Apple and the rest of you on this forum:
1) Why does the Mac Mini underpeform with the LCD display? The Powerbook works great, and the mini works great with my Cinema display (also 1920x1080) - where is the disconnect between the Mini and the Samsung? I understand very little about the actual details of DVI signals being carried across the wire, and don't understand what would cause the Powerbook to succeed, but the Mini to falter.
2) Assuming the Mini video hardware is at fault, has Apple improved this with the new Core 2 Duo line? Has anyone had success where previous Minis or other Apple hardware failed at 1080? If not, is there any announced intention to make the hardware that is positioned as being most ideal for the living room (ie, Mac Mini) actually DVI/HDMI-compatible with the finest HD living room devices?
3) An unfortunate sideffect of the DVI connection to the TV is that it requires the image from the Apple device to be oversanned (about a menu-bar's worth of pixels disappear on each edge) or underscanned (2" of black space around the image). Is there a common industry standard to correct this? Who is managing the overscan - the TV or the Mini? Also, can any utility, such as ScreenResX correct this until Apple manages to build in correction options into the OS for their living-room devices?
Thanks for all the help! Hopefully we can outline clear answers here in this thread for everyone else having similar problems.
Mac Mini G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Samsung LN-S4695D, Monster 400 DVI-HDMI 2m cable

David,
Great post. There's a lot to digest here. Let's get started!
The first question relating to noise, or static, over a TMDS (DVI) connection has to do with with the interoperability of various TMDS transmitters and receivers and how they are implemented. At this point in the market place there are thousands of combinations of transmitter/reciever pairings and obviously some are working better than others.
If you were to observe a TMDS signal with a scope there is something called the "eye" which is framed by the swing voltage and the bit time. When the eye collapses and is encroached upon, digital noise is the result. The noise margin is degraded by higher bit rates. That is why the mini and your TV are working at 720p but failing at 1080p...because the dot clock is that much higher for 1080p. The solution for cases such as this is to build a custom 1920x1080 timing that has reduced blanking, which allows for the lowering of the dot clock. Generally you can lower the dot clock sufficiently to get the noise to stop. LCD displays are relatively immune to reductions in blanking time so you can squeeze a lot out of a timing that was designed more with a CRT in mind.
To answer your second question, you can't fairly say the problem is with the mini. When you consider TMDS compatibility between two devices you have to take a whole system view. This includes not only the transmitter (mini) but the transmission line (PCB traces from the TMDS transmitter inside the mini to the mini's DVI connector -> the cable -> PCB traces from the DVI connector on the TV to the TMDS receiver in the TV), and the receiver. All three have to work together to make things come out right. You could probably just as easily find a display that works well with the mini that doesn't work with your PowerBook. It can be really had to pin the blame down to one device except in the most obvious cases where a certain device seems to be incompatible with just about everything. But I don't think the mini can be labeled that way. Compatibility is definitely an issue the industry still struggles with, especially at the higher clock rates approaching the 165MHz TMDS speed limit.
As for question 3, overscan is being forced by the TV, not by the mini. And, no, utilities like SwitchRes X and DisplayConfigX cannot be counted on to reliably deal with this except in the case of pure analog displays with magnetic deflection systems (e.g. old TVs and monitors). Once you have a digital processor involved and a matrix addressed display, tweaks to porch timings and blanking and such do not have predictable results. It seems to work in some cases but it is basically voodoo when it does. Purely luck.
If you want, I can help you to build a reduced blanking, 1080p timing that will most likely eliminate the DVI static. But you'll still be stuck with overscan. I should point out that a lot of manufacturers are starting to "get it" with respect to the public's desire to attach computers to their hi-def LCD televisions. I see a real shift in 2006 models. I believe the current crop of FHD (Full HD; native 1080) LCDs from the three "S" companies (Samsung, Sharp and Sony) all can display 1080p bit-for-bit now, meaning no overscan. So at least that is changing for the better. Write back if you want help with the timing.
Cheers. And thanks for starting this great thread.

Somehow my mac mini is stuck in hyper zoom hooked to hdtv

I have the 2010 mac mini uni body with cd slot, full size hdmi out.. I have been running it into a 42' Vizio lcd HDTV via Hdmi.. it has been working just fine, screen size was perfectly fit to 1080p matching my set size exactly.. working fine for 2 months then all of a sudden just the other night somehow my entire screen is magnified as if it were sized to a 60" tv. All icons in doc, lettering ect are all way big,, When I scroll the cursor over to the edge of the tv the screen slides over to the other edge of the computers finder window which extends well beyond the limit of the 42' screen... its stuck on some kind of mega magnified mode. I did nothing manually to make this occur, it just happened as I was surfing on the net. I have gone through every monitor/display setting I can find and cannot seem to unzoom/resize to fit my 42' screen. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and know how to fix this? the weird thing is my computer like I said was never like this from set up fresh out the box 2 months ago, all was working properly until 2 nights ago it popped into this weird zoom mode. Ive also tried everything on my tvs screen settings and have trouble shot it back to the mac. running snow leopard. help

YES!! that was it.. somehow I must have hit those key combos on accident to make it zoom out like that.. alt-cmd-8 popped it right back how it was supposed to be.. when I hit that combo again it pops it right back to the zoomed in problem. Thank you very much, I am now trying to learn all the various combo commands so I don't make some other weird mistake. problem solved by mooblie
Thanks for taking the time to address my issue theclearysmail and mooblie

Help my mac is not looking good at all

I know this computer could do so much better than it is and I feel as though I need to update my system to help it out, the colors look awful it is quite blurry sometimes and I can't make out words. Not good, not good at all. my questions is do I need to update to panther first or can I go right to the leopard, not quite sure which one would be best for me to do to get the best out of my computer.

Okay first of all I would love to say thank you to all of you who responded I have run the apple test cd and the hard drive is fine, I have fiddled around with the display on this quite a few times, gone into every program that would tell me issues, and checked every setting to make sure it is where it should be. Nothing, the hardware is fine and all of the settings are where they should be, so I can only assume it is a software issue. I have erractic mouse movement and it will just quit things unexpectedly like the net, or games that we WERE playing. I have since deleted all of the unecessary stuff off of the computer in hopes to free up some RAM, still did nothing. As far as the colors go it is really weird because only parts of the picture will be blurry where as the rest is fine, hmmmm very interesting, the LCD part is fine, but the rest is not. Is thier some sort of test I can run on this to find out if it is a software issue or should I just go through mac support, learn how to back up all of my files and restore all the software?
Again thank you all for your previous responses I appreciate it very much.
Fairywings73

How to get Mac of Windows 'look' in Windows XP

Hi,
After installing Adobe CS4 under Windows XP the programs displayed as Mac programs (see left image). But after a while some programs changed into a Windows look with the Windows Bar at the top.
My question is how I can control this look and set all programs the same.
The image included shows Photoshop CS4 (Mac look) and Premiere Pro CS4 (Windows XP look).
Thanks in advance for your help, Arman

Thanks Bob. But I thought that after installation all programs had this ("MAC-like") UI.
Now After Effects, Encore, Premiere Pro and Bridge have the Windows-look. Only Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash are "MAC-like".
Why is this inconsistent UI?
Arman

Getting mac min to look good on Sony Wega 30" HDTV CRT (KV-30HS420

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for