Horrible colors on external monitor using macbook air(2012) with mini dp to hdmi

Hi everyone,

I have been in touch with a senior advisor at Apple. We have tried a couple of more things to make my Macbook pro (mid 2012) work properly with an external screen via HDMI. We tried doing a clean install of the OS via internet recovery and then an update. It didn't help - the colours are still washed out.

The advisor claims that it must be a software issue and has contacted the engineers team. I am supposed to get in touch with them again in a few days and try a few more things with the engineers. I will report back.

Should this not work, I have been told that I can request a replacement of the Macbook.

By the way, the advisor told me that he has the very same Macbook Pro from mid 2012 and it works fine with a Samsung TV via HDMI, so the problem does not affect all Macbooks.

marcinetti,

I was really frustrated as well but decided to wait for a while and not return it at this point (I have MBP Mid 2012 too).

I just started using MDP to VGA, it's not perfect but it is much better than HDMI.

It is definitely driver issue, so it is not a hardware deffect or something, which means there should a solution (hopefully sooner than later).

Cheers

Hi gubble,

I am not very keen to return my MBP neither. I still hope that Apple engineers will figure something out or at least that I will get a promise that an update will sort this issue out soon.

I just want to sound off and say I have the very same issue. Brand new MBA 2012. Pulled it out and hooked it up to my external display using a mini display port to HDMI cable. Brand new, less than 4 hours old. I get poor resolution and really saturated colors. I am going to mono price.com and buy a mini display port to display port cable. I have a Dell U2410 and it has VGA, DVI, DisplayPort and Hdmi. I am wondiering if the external connection is display port if the situation will improve.

My guess is no. This is most likely a problem with a driver. Espeically since Windows appears to be just fine. I guess we need to wait for Mountain Lion 10.8.1 and get the driver fix.

I just recieved my MBA about an hour ago, and was deeply disappointed to find out about this issue. Same problem as the OP - washed out colors when connected to an external Samsung display via the moshi mini-DP to HDMI adapter.

I've just boughted and tested a miniDP to VGA cable and have no issues. There's definitely an issue with the HDMI out that needs to be looked into.

Calreth, you are absolutely right!

And also, I was wondering if anyone here know a person in the media, that doesn't work for Apple, so they can spread the word about this issue?

I know a guy in UK and I will try to contact him and see what he can do about it 😉

Gubble,

I had been thinking this would be good idea as well. I don't know, but I would imagine that most of the main tech websites would have some kind of "editorial" contact where you can get in touch with them to raise possible stories / issues that they might like to cover. They must always be looking for new stories to write about. Getting this problem discussed in the media must surely only help to get it recognised as an official problem by Apple (I think we can unfortunately be quite sure that it is indeed a problem).

As with others who have posted on this forum I am still is discussions with Apple Care who are, full credit to them, taking it very seriously and running through a range of solutions / information gathering exercises to try and pin it down. Obviously this takes time though, and the sooner it is recognised as a problem that is not just isolated to a few cases, the sooner they will hopefully start to look at solutions seriously.

If I have a moment later I may fire off some emails (and will refer to this discssion thread) to see if there are any favourable responses....

Considering that Mountain Lion is still on the intial release I doubt it will be news worthy. Now if the first update doesn't fix it, I would be willing to scream to the press. I am sure the Intell 4000HD driver is going to be updated to fix the problem. Patience. I am more inclined to be patient as this problem has been reported to customer service and they have acknowleged that engineering has been notified (whatever that means).

Apple has never released an update outside of their normal cadence. Running to the press isn't going to change that now. Besides the press is enjoying the Samsung Vs Apple trial too much to have any resources to spend on us poor people who cant hook up our hdmi displays to our displayport macs.

This is one of the problems with macs when it doesn't "just work" you are at apple's mercy to fix it. You cant go to intel (in this case) and download the latest driver.

red.radar,

You have some gooid points there, but the one that we have to be left at Apple's mercy is not.

We have paid them a premium price for premium quality and service. Saying this again, but this is my first Mac and I don't want to be (too) disappointed with it..

Also, the problem was present in Lion as well and I think it's not the OS version but as you said - just the driver.

I don't think many of us are screaming for a fix right this second, but more so of an official acknowledgement about this being an issue and that it would be fixed in say, OS X 10.8.1. It'd let us have a peace of mind rather than be left wondering if we have defective hardware or not.

This is also my first Apple computer, and I'd hate to be disappointed.

Totally agree with Calreth!

I have the Apple's MiniDP to VGA adapter on a Macbook Pro (Late 2011, Mountain Lion) with a Samsung monitor and I think I have this exact same issue.

Took a picture with my phone on how the colors look like in the external monitor:

And in the built-in monitor:

Changing the color profile doesn't help much.

My temporary fix was to change the monitor's "Color Tone" to Warm or using the "MagicColor" setting on my SyncMaster 2333. What it does when using the Warm Color Tone is change the RGB to 39, 31 and 18. Using the normal color tone (50, 50, 50) makes it look like the first picture.

However it used to work perfectly on my Late 2007 Macbook Pro with the DVI to VGA adaptor.

Yes this is identicle to the issues I had.

From my experience the killer issue was the HDMI output. This seems unresolveable regardless of adaptor, colour profile, contrast setting, PRAM reset or whatever else you may choose to throw at it.

I have mentioned that my VGA connection works before, however to avoid muddying the waters I didn't mention that when I first plugged in the Display port - VGA the image looked terrible. Like the first image you show. However I managed to find a colour profile for my monitor posted on some random online blog that pretty much sorted it out (I stress this was only for the VGA input not the HDMI input). This was not something I ever I needed to do with my old 2009 MacBook Pro where all displays no matter the connection simply worked plug-and-play, and looked beautiful.

I know you say changing the colour profile doesn't help, but If your VGA connection is providing you with the image you have posted, it may be worth either exploring the manual calibration (which frequently can still end up looking a little odd it must be said), or seeking an alternative profile for you rmonitor online. It may help. Of course it may not. There are definitely issues here that cannot be solbed by a colour profile.

The evidence for a problem here seems conclusive. Here's hoping it is recognised. The more Apple are contacted about it, the closer they must come to reolving it surely. Windows 8 in bootcamp works like a dream! OSX therefore has no excuses.