I've plugged my brand-new mac mini into my 32" LG LCD TV. although the display reads "1080p", the image is not crispy by any means and the picture goes over the size of my tv. i've fixed the desktop size by using overscan. i cannot figure out how to fix the clarity.
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.
