Will appletv fill my screen on a 1280x768 plasma?

Question

I have a Pioneer 503-CMX plasma. Its native resolution is 1280x768. This is mildly higher than 720p, but is a slightly different screen shape.
This plasma plays DVDs, HDTV, etc. perfectly, filling the screen without a problem.
Assuming I used either the component out or HDMI out (with an HDMI-DVI adapter), will apple tv fill the screen?
I ask this because when I hookup my MacBook Pro via the DVI port to my plasma, iPhoto slide shows and the like don't fill the screen unless I put my TV into a stretch mode, which obviously distorts or severely crops the screen. I assume that this is a limitation of the video card in the MacBook Pro, but I don't want to buy an AppleTV unless it will fill the screen without severe distortion or severe cropping.

Answer 1

As I said, when I tried doing similar things with my MacBook Pro, I couldn't fill the screen because the video card in the MacBook Pro couldn't match the 1280x768 resolution.And I have replied how it will look as displayed by an TV device no matter which output resolution your select on the device. At 1080i it will be scaled up to fill/letterbox/pillar your screen. At 720p, it will be mapped almost directly to the native resolution of your screen in fill/letterbox/pillar with only slight vertical scaling. And at 480p the HDTV will down scale to fill/letterbox/pillar in the same manner just as your HDTV performs the same scaling for your DVD or Sat TVRO receiver. I also have a 768 vertical Panasonic and the screen really works as already described.
As for your PC connection, I assume you were using the PC specific interface and not the regular HDTV interface. In this case, your TV and and the computer will negotiate a different set of resolution options just as plugging the TV into say, a DVI PC interface will allow your TV to list a different set of PC specific resolution options like 800 x 600 or 1600 x 1000, etc. depending on the nature of your HDTV PC interface.
Therefore, even if I tried something simple like playing a DVD on my Mac and outputting to the plasma via DVI, it wouldn't fill the screen. Of course, when I output from a standard DVD player, the picture is scaled to the plasma's resolution. What happens out of the AppleTV?As I tried to explain above, the viable settings have to be "negotiated" based on what the PC interface is capable of rendering on the TV and what your particular computer is capable of outputting. The options available to you will depend on the connection you plug the TV device into on your TV. When plugged into the HDTV inputs (HDMI/Component) it will behave as described above. How it behaves when plugged into your DVI PC connection will depend on your HDTV's PC interface and you should look at the manual to see what resolutions will be available. My plasma screen for instance has a range of specific PC resolutions which include: 640 x 400, 640 x 480, 852 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024, and 1366 x 768. I assume yours will have a similar list of options only some of which may be available via TV.