Poor resolution when plugged into 1080p 32" TV

I have the latest version of Mac Mini, connected to a Samsung 52"-866 using the minidisplay port to hdmi cable.
Mac Mini detects the input as 1080p, and my tv says the resolution is 1920x1080. I´ve chosen the "scan" option on the tv to see the full picture, but exactly as you mention in this post I also think the text is very rubbish. However, starting up plex and a 1080p movie gives me a perfect picture.
I was expecting the sharpness of a "computer" lcd screen on my tv, but its nowhere near that 😟
Any ideas?

Message was edited by: rikard1979

Same story all around it seems. The HDMI port was a push to allow use of the mini as a HTPC, not to replace traditional monitors.

Re: plex (don't use it myself, but ) Video playback via HDMI looks fine, no worse than any HD channels on my cable channels, but the text and still images are fuzzy.

I made an appointment at the Apple store Genius Bar last weekend, and brought the mini with. They hooked my mini up to the only HDTV they had on hand (a 30-ish inch Panasonic, I think), and the guy said it didn't look so bad to him, despite my pointing out the crap text. He asked/confirmed that I have tried setting the output to 24Hz. They gave the expected line of "it may be 1080 lines of resolution, but it's blown up to 30, 40, 50 etc inches, it's going to lose quality." They're not expecting people to hook the mini up to an HDTV at close range as a monitor, just as an optional output for youtube, hulu, itunes movies, etc, and NOT as a primary desktop monitor. They had no solution for me. I asked if the quality would be any better via the Displayport-VGA dongle, and they did not know, nor had any on hand to test or sell to me. They said I could buy the VGA dongle, and if it doesn't make it any better, return it. Will go back next week and get one, and see if my HDTV has any better quality via the PC input, though I'm not expecting much.

I'm very disappointed, I like the machine itself, but the "bring your own screen, mouse, keyboard, and webcam" was not the way to go. I saw this as a means to gain a large chunk of desktop space so I could run several apps onscreen at a time, and sort through large numbers of photos at a time, but the poor quality of the photos makes it semi- pointless, as I have to move things back to my old macbook to see if the pictures look good or bad). And as for what I spent on the customized upgraded config + the HDTV (has other uses, but this was the primary intention), I could have just bought a monster sized imac or a new powerbook.

Bad looking text can't be blamed on the HDMI interface. OS X doesn't do anything differently with text handling or rendering over HDMI. Whatever is resulting as disappointment in screen quality can wholly be blamed on the display itself. TVs are not computer monitors. At least they are not treated that way by most manufacturers.

There may be settings worth looking at on the TV. Check for Sharpness. And also make sure a color setting like Normal or Natural or Standard of something like that is in use.

I am having the same problem, I bought a mac mini yesterday and have been trying to get it too look good on a 37" 1080p LCD. The text looks awful!! For all these morons who claim the LCD is to blame for the bad text, I have this LCD hooked up to a Windows 7 PC and it looks PERFECT. The problem isn't the LCD it's the MAC mini. If you find a solution let me know... otherwise this apples going back, I'll stick with PC.

Interesting. I don't have one of the new minis, but was checking in here in advance of purchasing one. Given that a Windows 7 PC looks great on a 1080p LCD, has anyone tried loading Windows 7 via BootCamp on a mini and see how that looks over the HDMI cable?

I have just unpacked my new 2010 Mac Mini and plugged it into my 40" Samsung LCD TV. The picture quality is terrible. I also have my 2007 Mac Mini plugged into the same TV and the picture is perfect. I can quickly flick between the 2 to see the vast difference.

The 2007 Mac Mini says it's outputting 1080i, the 2010 Mini says 1080p. (I seem to remember running some script or program to force the 2007 Mini to output in 1080p). The TV says it's receiving a 1920x1080 signal @ 60Hz for both.

If I can't find a solution to this, it's going straight back and I'll go back to using my 2007 Mini. Not happy.

Same problem here. I had my dual G5 hooked up to my 47" LG (running at 1080p though the PC port) for about a year and it looked perfect. I sold it and bought a new 2010 Mac Mini Just picked up a 2010 Mac mini and now running it through the HDMI port. It looks SO bad it's not funny. After spending a day trying to get it to look good, I gave up and called Apple. Unfortunately he wasn't able to help me. I have other devices I've hooked to the HDMI ports and they all looked perfect (PS3 and Cable box) so it tells me it's the Mini. I'm so disappointed in Apple right now. I've purchased and used Apple computers all my life (MANY of them), but never have I had a problem like this. Please Steve, get your guys on this ASAP!!!

I hate to join the choir but I am in the same boat. I replaced my old Olevia LCD with a new Sony EX500.
I have tried everything to no avail. I am really surprised at Apple. The wife is going to kill me.

Since my last post, I am now on my 3rd 2010 Mac Mini.
I replaced the first Mini thinking my video card may have been problematic.
I replaced my second Mini due to other technical issues.
On all 3 Minis the image quality was relatively the same.

I changed to the VGA on the Sony. Text is better but still have issues with pixalation on some photo's. They look fine on my monitor on my HP. They were taken by the same point and shoot camera. I think the graphics are not that good on the mini. My G5 is great.

I have saved up for a while, and just bought a mac mini, in hopes to connecting it to my 32in sony bravia ex700. With all the problems I am hearing about, I am wondering if it would be best to return the Mini and the TV? I can't believe I am hearing all the negative feedback with regards to display issues.

I picked up BOTH the mini-display to VGA and MD to DVI dongles tonight, will be trying out all 3 options to see what works best over the weekend. I'll post my results in a couple days.

If you're thinking about a mini, there's nothing wrong with the computer part of it, just poor results using it with an HDTV instead of a classic computer monitor. If you have a good VGA monitor around, it should be fine (check back in a couple days to see if that proves true), but for what it costs plus the price of an HDTV (bigger than you'd get on a macbook, or imac) it's not going to be up to the quality of the LCDs that are built in to those other options, and the price isn't that far off when you add it up. Given the HDTV has other possible uses, but the 27" imac would have had higher specs and been less money than what I invested, and I didn't need another TV, just thought I was being more efficient with my money, doesn't appear to be the case.

I wrestled with this myself for a week with the kind of lousy font display described here and elsewhere on two LCD displays (trying VGA and DVI/HDMI) and a Sony Bravia large screen. Two long calls with the Apple tech support people (who, BTW, try quite hard to be helpful). We tried everything, including a clean wipe/reinstall of Mac OS X. If I did not get great results on all those displays with a three year old Macbook I probably would have accepted it as is. So I took the Mini back and got a full refund. This was at an Apple store (even waived the restocking), so I took a few minutes to talk to a Genius. The net: the Genius said the Mini is a great little package but don't expect great display performance on "old" displays. My guess is that most people just accept what they see or else the return line would be very long.

Update:
I have tried all 3 outputs to the same HDTV (Samsung 40", 1080p @ 120hz).
HDMI output -> HDMI cable -> HDMI input: text looks crappy, see previous complaints
MiniDisplayPort -> VGA dongle -> VGA cable -> VGA/PC input: clarity of text, photos significantly improved, although colors are not as bright (this model HDTV does NOT have color adjustments for the RGB input to adjust).
MiniDisplayPort -> DVI dongle -> DVI-HDMI cable -> HDMI input: hard to discern, clarity still not as good as the PC input, but the HDTV allows a "HDMI black" setting that it doesn't on the other two options which improves the color appearance.

Also note: can confirm what another poster said about the "sharpness" improvements, as the sharpness setting approaches zero (from 9 and below) there is SIGNIFICANT improvement in the text appearance, although still not as good as the quality of the VGA cable.

I'm going to keep the dongles through the week and see what time I have to play and observe, since I think I've been staring too long and I think my eyes have gone "soft" Will likely return the DVI dongle, and hang onto the VGA one, for the quality w/ photos and text. Any requests/suggestions to try in the next week, please post, I will do my best to exhaust my options.

you sir just pointed the obvious out to me that i was stumped for a week, heres how it goes, if your "text" (for me it was really just the status bar) is looking pixelated, and i checked all my settings on the mac, but all i had to do is bring my sharpness down 10% to smooth out the text 🙂 problem solved.