Poor resolution when plugged into 1080p 32" TV

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.

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

Ted, glad you are making progress. Keep hammering on the TV. There are probably some other settings active that are doing video processing of one kind or another. Dynamic this or dynamic that. They put so many settings on TVs which computer monitors don't have that it can be hard to finger the one (or more) control that is upsetting the appearance of computer output on the screen.

I too am trying to hook up a mini to a TV a Westingthouse W2613 - I spent about an hour with Apple Care last night and could not get it fixed. The mini works great with a mini display port to VGA to a 19" Princeton monitor, but not to the 26" Westinghouse - I tried HDMI to HDMI and Mini Display Port to VGA (got an error message "mode not supported" on the VGA.

At work I have a mini hooked to a 26" Vizio Monitor (it is a twin for the IMac monitor,minus the apple logo). Probably going to look for a monitor instead of a TV to solve this problem.

Gregg,
what kind of issues are you having with the LCD? Same poor text/resolution as previously mentioned earlier in this thread?
First, check the "Sharpness" setting on the LCD (might be indpendant for each input, so be sure you check in when actually on the mini's video). Sett the sharpness all the way to zero and see if it improves. That fixed my problem, and the geniuses at the apple store weren't aware of this fix (counter intuitive), so the AppleCare via phone you dealt with also might not have been.
Second, the HDTV you mentioned (W 2613) is a mid-range 720p LCD, so it won't be quite up the same resolution you can probably get from your VGA monitor (guessing). The "mode not supported" is a pretty common error for VGA i/o, typically means the resolution is an incompatible size/shape, ideally, hook both up at the same time (via HDMI and mDP) and play with the output settings for the mDP until you get something that shows up. Can't say if the quality will be up to what you want out of it, but I'm content with what I'm getting from my new mini (now that the "sharpness" issue is resolved).

I'm having the same problem, but I'm using Macbooks.

2007 black Macbook: Display To DVI -> DVI to HDMI -> Toshiba 3030D / Sony Bravia KDL 46 NX 715
2010 Macbook Pro: MiniDisplay To HDMI -> Toshiba 3030D / Sony Bravia KDL 46 NX 715

Always the same result: crappy text and images. Overall grainy look.
As soon as I lower the resolution (i.e. 720p or 1600x900, the aliasing disappears). It's only affecting the 1080x resolution as it seems. I'm losing my mind, here.

I'm having the same problem as everyone else with raggedy text and grainy looking pages. I'm connected via HDMI to a Panasonic Viera Cast 42" LED LCD and had been led to believe by the sales person that the Mac Mini would give me a fantastic quality internet using my tv as a monitor. Wrong.

I've read all the posts and see that adjusting sharpness seems to be a possible solution - can someone tell me, because I'm a real non-techo, is it the sharpness settings on my tv that I should adjust and then do I have to adjust them back when I want to watch tv?

Hey all,

just got my shiny new mini, basic model expanded to 4gb ram. Hooked it up to my Toshiba Regza 32" 1080p lcd and it looks completely stunning, sharp as a pin. However it doesn't want to play avi/wmv files through front row. I've installed 'flip4mac' but to no avail. Incidentally they place fine through vlc.

Any ideas?

Phil

Took my mini into the store this weekend to see if they had anything to say. We plugged it in to a 30" HDTV at the store and they definitely agreed that the quality through HDMI was poor. We then grabbed the floor model to see if it was just mine, but had the same results.

I ended up going home with a mini dvi to vga adapter. Although it's not digital, the quality is 100% better.

This really ****** me off. I just got the Mac Mini today and tried the same thing. HDMI cable to my Samsung 37" 1080p. Looks terrible. I would return this before stooping to some VGA cable. Boos all around Apple.

Kyle,

Try hooking up the HDMI to your HDTV again, find the settings and turn the Sharpness setting all the way down to 0/ Nil. That should help if not resolve. It pretty much fixed the problem for me, and I returned the VGA adapter.

Jay,
try the same thing, I'm using a 40" Samsung via HDMI and it's decent when the sharpness is turned all the way down. Note: it still looks bad with the sharpness as low as 8-10, but at Zero, the HDTV stops "editing" the image. Note, that on my Samsung, EACH input's settings are individual, so it won't affect other HDMI inputs unless you change them.

Grekat,
That last bit should help you. It will vary with the model/make, but some HDTVs have indivudual memory for settings for each input. If that's the case, you'd just flip input from PC (via HDMI?) to your TV source (another HDMI, etc), without any issues. If your model HDTV can only retain one batch of settings, you might be stuck changing the sharpness when you switch to a different source, in order to get the best picture.

Thanks Ted, only problem is everything goes through my receiver. So the TV Sharpness is going to affect my PS3 as well. I may go directly to the TV with the Mini but then I lose out on good audio.

I lowered the sharpness to zero and can see a slight fuzz all over the place. It looks blurred almost. I even tried going Mini DisplayPort to HDMI and got the same result. I don't have DVI on my receiver or TV so that's not going to work either.

Jay,
I don't know what kind of (if any) fuzz or distortion your receiver might be passing via the video, as my experience with modern a/v receivers is that the video is just a concession to allow it to BE the switcher in your system. Personally i'm the opposite, and I prefer to only send audio to mine, and leave the video to their individual sources. So my suggestion (and this is strictly an AV integration opinion) is to give it a try via HDMI directly and see what kind of picture you get with the sharpness ramped down. I don't have any fuzz problems, so you really shouldn't either.

(Getting off-topic for this thread, but...)
As for the loss of good audio, take a look at your HDTV and amp/receiver. Do they both support Optical? If so you can use the HDMI from the mac to the TV, then output the (good) audio from your TV to your receiver via optical and in theory you'd retain the potential for multi-channel hifi audio.

I dissagre. Since a lot of tv manufacturers are making tv's with VGA ports, WiFi connection, social media interfaces, blah, blah, blah; and computer manufacturers are doing a lot of efforts to hook their systems to your HDTV by ie including HDMI ports, UI for media software optimized for a tv usage, and you can keep going on with it. TV's and computers are getting along pretty much these days.

I'm gonna say this because I want to support my last statement by my own personal (and I mean personal. It's not like it has to work for everyone) experience. I've been using my 720p HDTV and my PC laptop hooked up via HDMI to HDMI for about 2 years now in two different systems (Vista and W7 on the same laptop) and both worked just fine. And since I'm really wishing get a new Mac mini next week to hook it up to my tv I'm expecting not to have issues doing this. A lot of people are posting about the resolution and HW decoding video issues... That makes me doubt about to get the finally and so waited Mac with HDMI port.

Having same problem! I got a new Mini this week and hooked it to an Insignia 22" LED screen via HDMI and the resolution is crappy. Text and photos are horrible. I've tried different resolutions, font adjustments, and color calibration and have found no resolution. The screen supports 1080p and looks great with a seven year old Sony Vaio running XP. I was so excited when I unboxed the mini and just knew it was going to look way better then the Vaio but was very disappointed. I have an appointment at the Genius Bar tomorrow but by the looks of everyone else's experiences, I should not expect a resolution. Looking like my options are return the Mini or spring for dedicated monitor. I have not seen any reports of folks having issues with computer monitors, only LCD TV screens connected via HDMI.

I too have the same problem. Using the mini DP-VGA dongle works and gives an ok image quality on my screen (Samsung SyncMaster LD220HD). If I try with a mini DP-HDMI dongle instead, I too end up with horrible image quality and ugly jagged fonts.