Poor resolution when plugged into 1080p 32" TV

I forgot to mention that I think I also read one solution would be to go from HDMI to DVI and try it from there. However, neither TV's that I own have DVI (only VGA). I suppose I could try HDMI to Component?

Yet another option is to get something that will convert HDMI to analog VGA. However, that again is $50+.

I think i've cracked the problem.

My mac was running in 64 bit mode and I tried changing it to 32 bit instead.

To do this, go to utilities > terminal and enter "sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture i386" and then enter and then type in your password and press enter. And restart. You should notice the improvement straight away.

If however, this doesn't work. You can revert back to 64 bit mode by going into terminal and typiing "sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64" and follow the commands.

Hope this works.

Roger

I think it was mentioned in a previous post but renaming the source in the menu setting for the TV fixed the crappy picture for me. I have a Mid 2011 Mac Mini and 3 Samsung LCD TV's. Looked like crap on my Syncmaster P2570HD and B2430HD. I went in the menu settings for the TV and changed HDMI to "PC" on the "Input Settings" / "Source List" and boom, problem solved. It got rid of the fuzziness and "underscan" option. I also did an expert color calibration and tweaked the sharpness.

This might be a Samsung only thing but my guess is it would work on others.

Having the same issue going from my MBP 15" to a new Lenovo L2321w monitor via mini-displayport to displayport. The monitor is detected as a television and is resolution is set properly to 1080p. Overall the image is okay, somewhat fuzzy, but the real downer is text. Text is terribly fuzzy and just plain lousy to look at.

I would not have a problem using the displayport to DVI adapter which seems to fix it, except the monitor only has VGA and displayport connections. I've tried going from displayport to VGA and it is much better, but still suffers a bit from the analog connection being somewhat soft, especially at that high a resolution.

So I cannot use DVI, and there's no way to boot Lion in 32 bit mode as was suggested. How do I get this new monitor to look as good as it should?

I think you're on to something, Thanzig. I noticed that flipping around through the various names for the inputs (at least on a Samsung TV) changes how it shows on the display. The display actually refreshes for the ones that have the word "PC" in them. I still believe this is Apple's issue, but hey at least we've got something.

Here's something else interesting...

I got some new RAM today and upped my Mini to 16 GB (which is why booting into 32 bit mode would not be acceptable for me). However, after doing this, it seems that the display is much clearer on the HDMI output into my TV (regardless of the name of the input). I could just be going crazy at the moment, but I swear it is so much clearer. In fact, I'm sitting in my chair at my desk which is a good 8 feet or so from my TV, and I can read this clearly as I'm typing it. I don't recall being able to do that before.

So if you have some extra RAM lying around for some reason... Throw it in and see if it makes a difference (or just upgrade it). Before, I had 4 GB.

If I have time, I'll revert back to the 4 GB and see if there is actually a visible difference back-to-back, but I really really think it's better now.

I have had 4GB, 8GB and now 16GB in my Mini and never noticed a differenence in the resolution. I have the higher end mini with dedicated video card so my system doesn't steal RAM, but I've never heard of RAM affecting resolution.

I'm downloading XCODE now. I hear there are some settings that enable some HiDPI display modes via quartz debug. I've heard it gives you some extra smoothness on text. Will post pics and results later

I just solved my issue - I have a 2011 Mac Mini w/ HDMI to a 1080p 42" TV.

I was having issues with clarity of icons, text, etc. Things were ok but not 1080p ok.

I just went through my TV settings and noticed my sharpness level was extremely high. I turned it down and could see the clarity improve.

Worth a shot, worked for me.

I have this same problem too with my MacBook Pro. I tried the MiniDisplayport to VGA and it works fine with that. I agree it looks aweful, discolored and pixelated through HDMI. I found a problem with the VGA though, iTunes does not allow me to play my TV Shows and movies from iTunes through the monitor. This is very agrivating all it does when I play the movie, or TV show is come up with a black screen and will not play.

I actually have this problem with my Dell Monitor - Running Windows the display runs at 1920x1080x32@60HZ (the highest resolution, but on OSX it recognizes the display as a TV and it's a little less crisp.

OSX also won't play HD content (I hate HDCP), while Windows will.

The Intel HD 3000 graphics are still premature on OSX, so I think future software updates with probably fix this problem.

Yes, apple apparently knows about this. If you watch something from iTunes in quicktime it does almost the same thing accept it says "This movie cannot be played because it is on a display that is not authorizet to play protected movies. Try moving this window to a different display or disconnecting any displays that are not HDCP authorized." This is both annoyig and takes away a lot of possibility from the computer. Apparently it is supposed to do that so you can't record it with some sort of hardware. Even so I think this should definitly be changed.

I still haven't had a chance to test if the RAM upgrade really had anything to do with it...

However, as dumb as this is, I wanted to throw this out there:

Apple released some sort of firmware update a few weeks ago. I can't remember off the top of my head, but now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I installed it after I last tested this issue and before I installed the new RAM. So, it's not out of the question that the firmware update did fix the issue (even though I didn't see it explicitly listed when I ran the update).

With that said, is everyone absolutely positively sure you are you completely up to date with your firmware??

Guys, i've done this configuration on "Sharpness" to 0 and choose de mode "Movie", on picture mode. My HDTV is a Samsung LED TA550 22" - very common here in Brazil.

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Pessoal, eu fiz essa configuração da "Nitidez" pra 0 e escolhi modo "Filme" no Modo de Imagem. Minha HDTV é uma Samsung LED TA550 22" - muito comum no Brasil.

Hi all,

I just posted this to another thread, then saw this one. Really disappointing to learn that this problem is extensive & ongoing. Thought I would add my story to the sad lot...

2011 Mini connected via HDMI connections on both ends to New Toshiba 40E220U LCD 40" TV. (PS3 is hooked to second HDMI jack). Both work, but the sharpness of the picture is really poor with regular programs (Firefox, iTunes, etc.) on the Mini. Dark text has a white shadow underneath, edges are not crisp. Not the picture quality I am looking for. Websites, like yahoo, look horrible. Text looks "spotty". However, when I play a youtube or netflix video on the Mac Mini, the picture is really sharp & crisp... wonderful! And the quality of movies playing through the PS3 is very nice. Any idea what I am doing wrong here?

Thanks in advance for any help.

IR

This worked for me too... had the same problem, just got a Mac Mini, connected it to my Samsung UE55D8000 via HDMI and really wasn't happy with the picture. Didn't really believe that using another cable would be the resolution to my problem. After tweaking the picture settings on my TV, I was really happy with the result. The main culprit was the Sharpness level, it was really high. Lowered it to around 10 and now the picture is really great.

I'm having the same problem with my new Air (HD 4000) using the thunderbolt to hdmi connector. My monitor is an LG IPS235 I'm setting 1080p but the quality is poor, it's hard to read emails and I really can't use google maps unless I zoom at maximum level...

I read all the post in this thread but I didn't understand if this is a software problem or is related to the mac mini

I just hope it will be eventually solved in ML...