Page 1 of Hooked up Mac to HDTV... Advice needed please!!!!!!

Just hooked my Macbook Pro up to my LG 42" HDTV (which supports 1080i and 720p).

I`ve done this by using the adapter that comes with the Macbook, and then using a DVI cable (take out of the back of my PC flatscreen monitor). If I flick over to RGB on my TV settings, I`m now seeing the second dual screen of my Mac. So far so good.

Have just watched a couple of trailers on Quicktime, from the Apple.com website, both in 720p, and they look fine. I`ve just downloaded VLC player, and I`m currently awaiting the download of the HDV test files to download from this very site.

Now, am I actually seeing true HD? And would I get better results going into HDMI (of course this means buying another lead)? Also, are there any settings I should look for on my Mac or TV to improve image clarity?

Many thanks in advance.

In most cases hooking up a PC via VGA gives as good or better results in practice as using HDMI/DVI - even though one extra stage of digital to analogue conversion takes place in the VGA case.
HDMI tends to be harder to set up and also most display panels (incuding TVs) only have a limited or restricted range of resolutions in HDMI/DVI mode.
So, in a nutshell, I don`t think it would be worth the effort.
You should be seeing true HD as long as you set the video from the MAC to one of its higher resolutions.

Chris Muriel, Manchester

Thanks for the help Chris.

Any recommendations for sourcing some HD stuff to try on it?

Your mac book already has, presumably, a higher definition than your TV, so you were already seeing HiDef on your laptop, if thats what you were getting at.

I dont know about Codecs for Macs, but there is a lot of HD stuff floating around, trailers, torrents and so on. I think there are a lot of HD Tivo rips kicking around at the moment.

But, again, the Picture will be worse on your TV than on your Laptop. This is one of the problems a lot of people who buy HDTVs as second monitors are encountering. For example, If your tv is running at 720p, it is effectively running a monitor resolution of 1280x780. The mac book pro has a resolution of (assuming you went for the big 17" version, which i know you did since you are a drug dealer, after all) 1680 × 1050 (which is almost the hallowed 1080p resolution of 1920x1080p )
The 15 inch has a screen res of 1440 × 900 , fwiw, which is still higher than most High Def screens. Then youve got the image stretched to whatever size your telly is.

A standard 24" monitor, for example, has a resolution of 1920 x 1200, which is a higher resolution than any of the HD standards and is one of the reasons why TFT monitors are still quite pricey when compared to LCD TVs. However, yeah, it will be handy when you finally get some decent HD stuff on your Mac.

We went shopping for Macs a few weekends ago, so the mrs can get FCP experience and the salesman tried to give `Use your HDTV as a monitor!` as a selling point. I didnt go into detail, but I told him that it would be pointless for high precision graphic work.

Well I`m currently running my Mac on 1440 × 900, and upon plugging it into my TV, the tv screen autoformatted to what I believe was 1920 x 1200. The Mac also found it as a LG TV and optimized and helped to calibrate it accordingly. I downloaded some .mov HDTV footage from the Apple site, and pulled out the frame to full screen on my TV. I have to say, although it wasn`t pixel perfect, it was pretty fantastic.

To be honest, for doing my editing (and I`m talking about offline, rather than online) I think hooking up my Mac to my TV is a great idea, especially considering I`m working with compressed and uncompressed Z1 HDV footage.

I`ve now got a variety of HDTV files downloading, in different formats, which I`m going to try on VLC Player. I did dual boot my Mac into Windows XP (wanted to try the mvr9 codec on Theatretek which I`ve heard its the best optimization for this type of media), but I found that setting up Windows XP for dual monitor with my TV was bordering on impossible in comparison to the plug and play of Mac OSX.

Oh, and good luck with your wife getting the FCP experience. I`d seriously recommend the Lynda.com or Total Training DVDs (which I have, if you are interested) to learn the software, and I swear by actually physically reading the manuals (if you have them available of course). I`ve got a `spare` copy of Final Cut Studio 5.1 (for Intel Mac`s) by the way.... ;)

FWIW, and this might just be my eyes, but I thought the footage looked better on my HDTV rather than my Macbook Screen.

Oh, and Mr. Smartass.... it`s a 15 incher!

Oooo - this is rather coincindental.... I`ve been thinking of hooking up my lap-top to my HD Plasma this week to see what the results are like. I`ve got to get a DVI cable though - and don`t you also nead an audio lead if you want to watch movies etc. (coming out of the lap-top`s headphone jack - into the tv or speakers)?

Looking at the manual, it looks pretty basic (even for me!) but I`m sure some problem will arise (...you might be getting some PMs soon, Ben... ;) ).

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don`t you also nead an audio lead if you want to watch movies etc. (coming out of the lap-top`s headphone jack - into the tv or speakers)?
Thats correct. The DVI cable doesn`t send through audio unfortunately, so you`ll have to hook up your speakers to your laptop, which is a bit of a pain.

I had issues hooking up my TV from my Mac when I was in Windows XP, but using the Mac OSX operating system it instantly worked. You may find it easier through a normal PC laptop though, I don`t think the Boot Camp* software supports dual monitors in XP yet.

*Boot Camp is the new BETA software from Apple, for running both Windows XP and Mac OSX from your Apple Mac.

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you might be getting some PMs soon, Ben...
Bring `em on! :D