Monitor issues HELP
 

Now I have mulitple monitor issues.....

i have been trying to hook up my mini to my HDTV..
and i couldn't get the picture to come in, i read on the internet of a program called displayconfigX that would put a bunch of extra options in and that might give you the ability to see the HDTV. Well, i installed and bought the shareware, but it still didn't help. I brought my LG LCD monitor home from work so that i could have the ability to have a monitor close to the tv and see if i could get it to work. I tried changing the resolution to something really high and then plugging in the HDTV and now the LCD monitor won't work either. I brought the monitor down to the PC and LCD monitor will work on the PC, but the mini can't get the LCD monitor to work. I emailed the shareware guy and he told me to uninstall custom configs, so i did that, but still no luck getting the LCD to work. I CAN get the Viewsonic PC monitor to work with the mini, but no luck getting the LCD monitor or the HDTV to work. BTW, the HDTV is using DVI->HDMI

no love
 

i can't believe noone will even comment on this. is this community for real?

Hold your horses, tiger.
Mac minis are pretty new still, and not a lot of die-hard Mac users have them. They're more of a 'switcher' thing. It may be that no one here has; 1) read your post yet, it's been less then 24 hours after all, 2) tried hooking up an HDTV to a Mac Mini.
Did the LCD ever work? Or did it work before you set the video vard resolution "really high", and fail afterwards?

Frankly I'm curious why you would want to hook up a 32MB video card to an HDTV monitor.

What DVI connection is on a mini? Is it DVI-I or DVI-D? I know that some HDTV connections only support pure digital, and not the digital/analog. So, your TV may very well be a factor in this situation. Will probably need more info to fully help you.

According to this article on the Apple support pages,
On page 32 of your manual, it tells you how to hook up to a tv - I just went through this, of course, I didn't have an HDTV, but I used the yellow cable and the composite video out adapter. If your tv is capable of s-video, you could use the same adapter and go that way.

I didn't need any additional software. I did need to turn the tv to some odd channel though. On one of my tv remotes I push a button labelled tv/video and I just keep pushing it until the picture appears - I also have to push this button when I want my dvd player to kick in. The other tv remote has a button labelled tv/av and it works the same.

I'm attaching an image of a page in your book. I don't have a Mac Mini, I found this information at
Apple's site and clicking on the support tab and then typing "mac mini" in the search box located on the support page.

Hope this helps, Margaret

This is all I could find:
Ports: One FireWire 400 port; two USB 2.0 ports; DVI output; VGA output (adapter included)

I appreciate the other ideas, but going away from the HDMI connection to s-video or component isn't really my first option. Likewise, I can see how someone might question wanting to hook up a 32 meg v-card to a HDTV, but when you have it, USE IT :)

Regarding the LG LCD monitor. It works fine now, I got it fixed and the mini is hooked up via DVI -> VGA. I at least have that working, but I'd still like to see the mini on the Sony 60" so that I can surf and check email from the COUCH! hehe

Info from another thread about DVI-I and DVI-D
 

HDTV Compatibility with Mac Mini

Hello - Does anyone know what is required on my HDTV to be compatible with a Mac Mini?

I have a DVI Input and the TV says it supports 1080i and 480p resolutions but when I plug the Mac Mini in to the TV nothing happens. I don't even get the Apple screen at startup. The input formats on my TV are ATSC and NTSC. Is the Mac Mini using some other standard?

Thanks.





Well, depending on the model TV you have, you might need to use an application like SwitchResX or something to get the timings correct. Post the model of the TV you have and maybe someone has already gotten it to work.

Also, check out the Mac HTPC forum over at www.avsforum.com for some advice.




Thanks for your response.

The TV is a Zenith C32V36. It's a 32 inch CRT HDTV monitor with a DVI w/ HDCP input. If it was a matter of setting the right timings wouldn't I see something when I turn the mac on? Currently I get nothing.

[from the TV spec sheet] Are there different standards of DVI?
DVI with HDCP
The Digital Visual Interface (DVI) provides an uncompressed
transfer of high definition video from a digital video source
to a digital display device. HDCP (High Bandwidth Digital
Content Protection) ensures copy protection of the content.




Re: HDTV Compatibility with Mac Mini [re: slinky]
* * * 04/11/05 11:48 AM


Slinky,

I've never tried any of this before, so my info will be next to meaningless. However, I can tell you that there are 2 flavors of DVI. They are DVI-I and DVI-D. Mainly, it denotes the ability to deliver analog video via the DVI connection. In your case, however, it shouldn't be a problem as the mini does DVI-I, which covers both analog and digital.

As for the HDCP, I think that only comes into play when you're trying to view copy protected sources. It hasn't been implemented yet. Besides, your desktop certainly isn't copy protected

Hopefully, someone else will be able to help you out. In the meantime, you should play with SwitchResX to see if you can get anything to work. It's shareware, so you can test it before you pay for it.

Dear, BajaBoggs, did you read what I posted?

Did you try pushing the little button on your tv remote control that is labelled something like TV/AV or TV/Video??

Please let us know that you've at least tried our advice.

Margaret

Thank you for you care
 

YES, Margaret, I am on the correct TV/AV or Video input setting. My hi-tech HDTV has 7 video inputs! The only setting that will work with HDMI (that is high def media input) is video 7 and I do know how to get there. Did you read my response that I'm not interested in using s-video or component yet? I want to try and get the HDMI working

Well, good luck with that, since according to Apple your Mac Mini will connect to a TV using the composite or s-video.

If you get it working, let us know. I'm not sure I see a hdtv in my future, but others will surely be interested.

I'm sorry I misunderstood your mission.

Just an added note, when I taped my tv show earlier this week, they used the composite video out from my PowerBook. Mind you that wasn't for broadcast in HiDef I suppose.

Margaret

make sure the tv is set to the right channel/video mode first and its turned on. Then power on your mini and see if that does it. If macs do not initalize video at the boot strap process sometimes they will not initalize video at all. So, make sure its all set up and good to go then power it on.

See if that makes a difference. I have a PC multimedia system in my living room hooked up to my reciever and tv. I can play any type of media format via the computer and watch it on my tv and play it through my stereo. The tv has to be turned on and on the proper video mode before I turn on my PC, that way it will initial both the video on the monitor and the s-video out on the video card. This may or may not work for you.

good suggestion
 

Thanks Larkin, but I've done that. I've tried it with the TV off prior to boot and the TV on prior to boot. I've tried being on the right video input and I've tried with switching later. Anyway, I find it mind boggling that Apple would manufacture a machine like a mini NOT expecting folks to hook it up in the living room to HDTV. This issue is currently on other boards as well. It would be nice if macosxhints was the first to solve it. :)

Check this out. I realize that it is for a Sony, but at the bottom of the page someone says about the TV only supporting 1080i and the signal was coming in at 1080p. I noticed above in your post that your TV supports 1080i. Perhaps you are getting the wrong signal to the TV and its not a resolution issue?

http://tenant.com/mini.php

we are getting somewhere
 

thanks for the last response. I think that might be helpful, I'll check back with everyone when I've tried it.

No Luck Yet
 

Here is an update:

I got the program displayconfigX v1.07

I tried two fixes.

1)I hooked my laptop up to the HDTV (because I CAN get it to work with the HDMI cable). I then opened displayconfigX v1.07 and clicked on the "card" tab and then the "+" button. I then installed the new setting on the machine. After doing this, I replaced the overrides folder from the /system/library/displays path on the mini with the folder from the PB. Unfortunately that didn't fix it. I don't know if it is in that folder that the setting gets saved, but I think it is?

2)I did the same steps as above, but uses the setting that appear in the tentant link above.

No success...

I have visions of the rest of your household gathered in the kitchen around the old 10" crappy tv trying to watch their favorite programs while you fiddle with this thing and rolling their eyes every time they here another expletive erupt from the living room. In an hour or so when Best Buy opens, they will all pile into the mini-van and haul themselves over there and lay down the credit card and buy another wide screen tv for the other side of the family room so they can watch what they want to watch while you continue to play with this thing :D :D :D

I'm mocking you because I know the feeling. By now, I would have forgotten why I even wanted to do it in the first place.

You do know that Apple sells 39" cinema displays that you could set way over there beside the tv and you could surf on that from your couch and have the tv on and watch the game at the same time? Only a couple thou.

Take care, margaret

humor is helpful
 

Margaret,

You are correct! My family has about had it with me. However, I can tell you that having the PBG4 hooked to the tv and showing off the mac bluetooth key board and mouse along with BEAUTIFUL OSX! I really hope I can find away to make this damn mini do what I bought it for.....

Thanks,

John

Last night I had grandkids here and I told them to see if they could hook up one of those $10 B&W tvs to cable. You know the ones they give you when you buy a tank of gas.

Well, the tv doesn't have a regular cable hookup so we were using a VCR as an intermediate device. We fussed over that thing for ages. It would play a tape through the VCR but not show a cable channel.

Finally, one of the kids got tired of our *game* and hauled another tv into the bedroom and asked me where the cable was for in there.

Can you guess what's coming next?

That's when it dawned on me that there was no cable hooked up to the VCR.

The bruise on my forehead should heal in a week or so. :D

Margaret

no solution yet, any other suggestions?
 

I am at a dead end at this point.....

Was Apple tech support any help?

m

I had similiar problems with my ibook on my big screen at home. I ultimately just got a cheap PC, slapped a nice video card in it, and a few extra hard drives and voila, I can now play any type of media through my computer into my TV and stereo. BTW it runs linux, which was a free download :)

What dappy mentioned makes most sense to me. You probably need to use something specific with apples specifcations. I am sure the mac mini will do exactly what you want it to, as long as you are using specific equipment that its designed to work with.

I am willing to bet if that is the issue if you hold out a while longer there will be a firmware update to fix this. My only other question to you is, will it work with different TVs?

There are actually a few more formats than just DVI-I and DVI-D, there are single and dual link DVI connectors, DIV-A, DVI P&D, each have different pin out configs.

http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html#Page02

http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html#Page05

I assume that mixing the formats from input to output you might run into some troubles. I will search the mac mini service manual and find out exactly what outputs it offers.

Also, you never said anything about what happened with 1080i vs 1080p. I realize it probably didnt work but did anything at all happen etc?

Also you might want to check out hometheatermac.com

The problem at this point is that I'm not 100% sure that I've been able to change ANY of the settings on the mini. The reason for this is that when I hook up DVI/HDMI cable from the mini to the HDTV, I can't see ANYTHING. So, I have resulted to hooking up my PBG4 to the HDTV and then using displayconfigX to set custom settings and then I copy the following folder:

/System/Library/Displays/Overrides

into an email and send it to the mini and then I overwrite the same folder on the mini. Then I restart the mini and hook it to the HDTV again. It still doesn't work, and I really don't know if I've changed the correct information on the mini to make it work? I HAVE tried the 1080i v 1080p IN AND ONLY IF, what I described is correct

Good News!
 

Somehow the HDTV starting working. I upgraded to OSX 10.3.9. In addition I hooked up my PBG4 to the mini through VNC and was able to get the mini to work with the HDTV! I'm not sure if it was the OS update or the VNC hook up that allowed me to reinstall the displayconfigX settings that worked, but it IS WORKING! I am releaved and happy. Thanks to everyone that helped!

ONE MORE QUESTION:

On the TV the bottom of the computer display is below the bottom of my TV display, is there a way to adjust it so that I can see the bottom of the computer display?

Doesn't that have to do with the "overscan" setting? http://voodoofx.all.de/displayconfigx/#Overscan