Howto get 1080p on SAMSUNG LCD TV

Hallo Jürgen,

what about the connection? DVI2HDMI?

Several people have experienced such an issue and many have been able to fix it by using the following procedure:

Go into Displays preferences and select "Show displays in menu bar" if it is not already selected with a check mark.

The result of making that selection is that there should now be a small icon in the menu bar that looks like an old Apple Cinema display. Click on that icon and, in the resulting drop-down menu select "Number of Recent Items" and set it to 10.

You may have to now restart the mini but several people have reported that, when they go back to the icon in the menu bar and drop it down, among the list of resolutions there will be some resolutions that did not show up in the normal Displays preferences pane, including sometimes there will be two or more 1080 resolutions and one of them will be 1080p. Good luck.

I've tried this approach and it doesn't work for me.

It does make two 1920x1080 options appear, but only one of them works. On selecting the other one, the TV claims the resolution is not supported. The TV does support 1080p though, according to any documentation I can find. Maybe it's a bug with the TV firmware though?

I'm using DVI-to-HDMI as it's the only option which would even give me 720p -- using VGA the TV refused to take any resolution except for 640x480 and 800x600.

I thought it might be a refresh rate thing but even if I drop to 50Hz it still only shows 60Hz options on the menu bar anyway and 1080p doesn't appear on the list in display preferences.

firstly, does your panel is FullHD to begin with?

Secondly, if the andswer is yes, don't panic yet, your MacMini can well handle 1080p resolution. It's just that the Samsung panel EDID (consider it a way the computer and display communicate in layman term) pointed your Mini to the wrong way. You can try this app call SwitchResX: http://www.madrau.com/html/SRX/DL.shtml and manually adjust the display setting.

Do google about how to use the app before you begin. Goodluck!

Hello, I have a problem with my mac mini (Core 2 Duo (1.83GHz) / 1GB / 80Gb), I used Mac OS X 10.4.10.
I connect my Mac to LCD TV Philips 42PF7621, with HDMI Cable from adapter DVI-HDMI. When OS started I can see only green colors on LCD TV. I change resolutions , change colors modes, change HDMI ports in my TV but it can`t nothing results. I have connected my MAC to standart computers monitor by DVI cable, no problems with colors.
Please write me to e-mail if you have this problem or know to decide artvir at rambler.ru

Sounds a lot like a bad adapter.

I have the same issue with a Samsung LNA650 series which is 1080p.

The display preferences show 1920x1080 (interlaced) and although the "trick" mentioned above added two more 1920x1080 resolutions they both do not appear to make a difference.

I've also tried SwitchresX which has been claimed by some to help resolve the issue, it appears to have a problem on 10.5.6 (won't switch resolutions).

I can see in the system.log that OS X is choosing a TV Panel profile, but there is no information on what these profiles support. Is it just missing the 1080p for Samsung?

See if you can bring up an information display on the Samsung that tells what format it thinks it is receiving. It has been widely discovered and reported that there is some kind of bug in OS X where it can say that 1080i is being output, but in fact it is 1080p. The TV should be able to say if it thinks it's getting 1080p. I would trust what the TV says over what the Mac says.

Well it's a bit silly on Samsung's part, but you have to use service mode (something that can void your Samsung warrenty) to get the tv to show you what it thinks it's getting in terms of 1080i or 1080p. The current TV firmware I have (Oct 2008) just shows 1920x1080@60hz when a signal is present by default. Might be another way but haven't found it yet.

Initially using the display preferences "1920x1080 (interlaced)" it is indeed 1080i.

Using the trick mentioned above, selecting one of the 1920x1080 resolutions it switches to 1080p. The display preference still show 1920x1080 (interlaced) though which leads to confusion here.

There are some other resolutions in display preferences that are not valid (and tells you such when you try to use them) so it seems to start by picking a generic TV Panel profile to put in display prefences. It's apparent it knows what the HDTV can do but doesn't filter display preferences on it.

So when the TV says it is receiving 1080p, I would trust that.

Check out the technical specifications for you Mac Mini.

According to my mini's specs, the mini will support display resolutions to a maximum of 1920 x 1200 digital (DVI) and 1920 x 1080 Analogue (VGA). Hence most HD TV's with a PC link have VGA ports on them.

Connect the Mini through VGA, go to system prefs, displays and set the resolution to 1920 x 1080. Your Mini should fill your screen happily

I would logically think so. Have you tried it yourself?

I have tried VGA and DVI->HDMI connections mini (C2D intel, running 10.5.6) to my Samsung HL-T6187SX tv. The TV is set to "Just Scan" on the HDMI input, which is a 1-to-1 pixel mapping (zero, or close to zero, overscan). The Mini is set to 1920x1080, no overscan.

I get huge black borders (4-5" on the sides, 2-3 inches top/bottom).

With osx-overscan turned on I lose the top menu bar. DisplayConfigX does not seem to think it is tweakable.

Any suggestions?

Sophie424, if you press the P.SIZE button on the TV's remote and toggle to the "Wide PC" setting then I believe that a picture size adjustment becomes active and can be set using the up/down/left/right arrows on the TV's remote.

BSteely, thanks, I'll try that. Should I go dvi or vga? And should mac overscan be on or off?

Yeah, the overscan checkbox is counter intuitive. I think it needs to be on.

It may be that you have to use the VGA interface in order for the size adjustments to work. Not sure.