Mac Mini, Displaylink, Triple Displays, Video Streaming Black Screens

sward5 wrote:

I have a new Mac Mini 2023 w/ M2 Pro Chip with macOS ventura software. All three Dell 4K 27" monitors were finally detected with the Pluggable dock with displaylink software.

Now that you have bumped the thread, I've noticed something that I should have caught before.

You say that you have a Mac mini with the M2 Pro chip – and three Dell 27" 4K monitors. That Mac has hardware support for three displays: "Two displays with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with up to 4K resolution at 60Hz over HDMI."

Dell tends to include multiple inputs on their monitors, so I'm guessing that all three of your monitors have HDMI and DisplayPort inputs, and that some or all of them may also have USB-C (DisplayPort) inputs. Since these are "only" 4K monitors, I assume that none of them require Thunderbolt input.

I'd suggest connecting the monitors as follows:

• Monitors 1 and 2 – Using a USB-C to USB-C cable, a USB-C to DisplayPort adapter cable, or a USB-C to HDMI adapter cable from your M2 Pro Mac mini to the monitor.
• Monitor 3 – Using a HDMI to HDMI cable from your M2 Pro Mac mini to the monitor.

This would tie up two of the four USB-C (USB, USB4, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 4) ports on the back of your M2 Pro Mini, leaving two for other things (such as the Plugable dock, if it has any NON-video ports you need it for).

Once you have all of the monitors hooked up to use native hardware video support, uninstall DIsplayLink software.

That might clear up issues with playing DRMed streaming video – and offer better performance, especially if you ever do anything involving rapidly-changing video content (like video editing or gaming). You paid for a Mac that can support three 4K monitors in hardware – might as well take advantage of it!

Display Link is basically a third party hack to multiple display issues (not just on Apple platforms) and the resolution of issues due to that software are up to them to solve.

In terms of the three video services you mention, it can also can be due to DRM issues (the very specific hardware requirement video vendors require to protect from pirating videos) that Display Link does not support.

sward5 wrote:

Then, I tried to stream appletv, netflix, amazon video, etc. The only thing I see is a black video screen with sound. It would be very helpful if Apple could devise a way to allow its software to accept this feature or render it unnecessary.

Ah, the "joys" of DRM.

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