MBP Retina: Poor image quality from hdmi output

Francisco Jose Villegas Belo wrote:

On Friday i receive a MacBook Pro Retina 2.7/16/768. I use it with a Thunderbolt Display and all is OK. Today i connect it to my Panasonic Plasma thru The HDMI conector and.... All OK, 1920x1080p, idem like my MacMini thats live with The Plasma. No frozen, beautiful, perfect. The S.O. Is OSX 10.8.2 and i always use the discrete card (N650). I don't know id there are a new MBPr revision, but in my machine the HDMI works perfect.

Are You there Apple?, what happens?

What's your question, it's elusive.

My question is, if my new MBPr works well with HDMI output with OSX 10.8.2, and others don´t, perhaps it´s a hard problem, i don´t know. Anyone with a new MBPr can help us?.

I spoke to Apple support today about this exact same issue.

First line support ran through some typical hardware/software tests like resetting the graphics card and booting into safe mode but as you'd expect, this was still the same after. We even tried another HDMI screen (a HDTV as it happens) but the results were again the same.

I was then connected to a Senior AppleCare Advisor who advised me that due to the tests we've run and that it works perfectly in Bootcamp it's likely to be a driver issue. Therefore she has passed the call through to their engineering team who would respond within 48 hours. She seemed pretty confident that a new driver would need to be sorted and was very keen to see the issue resolved.

She did however mention that this wasn't a known issue.

I'll post an update when she contacts me on Wednesday hopefully.

My above post is in relation to a 13" rMBP I purchased in October last year running 10.8.2 that also has the problem.

Thanks for the report Puntoboy. Your experience is virtually identical to what I went through with Apple support and AppleCare in trying to fix my 15" retina MBP. I wasted a good two weeks before giving up.

Each time, Apple support staff expressed surprise over the problem. They said they had never seen this problem before. Finally, they would tell me that it must be a driver issue and that it would be fixed soon. I'm glad I didn't fall for that excuse. I returned the MBP with its defective OS. Now, several months later the problem still has not been fixed. I'm very glad I didn't trust Apple on this one.

It will be interesting to hear your update. Good luck.

I would very much like for Apple to fix this widespread problem. It is unlike Apple to screw up something like this.

That doesn't sound too good. I'm not confident now it will be fixed.

I won't be returning it however, I don't often hook it up to an external monitor so I will have to live with it until they fix it.

Well, I went to the apple store to find out what was going on with the video output of the mac mini.

First the guy said that the problem should be my monitor... luckyly I brought my 27" monitor all the way there (as I was expecting to hear something like that). Then he say that could be normal... and after not much talking he said it could be an ingeneering problem.

He said that they were having plenty of problem with the macbook pro, so they perfectly know the junk they have shipped. "Apple doesn't ship junk"... I can not believe that they didn't know about this issue when they started to sell the machines...

Some people said there are ways to solve this using alternatives or downloading programs, using gadgets... Well guys, I don't buy a mac to feel as I'm working with ubuntu and I have to manage to make it work at the standard (I insist ubuntu worked pretty well when I tried it). I found the whole experience (that it´s ridicously longer but I will not tell it completely) as a joke and at the end my conclusion is that there is no operative system or machine that works 100% fine. We can not denied Apple part in the computer developing history, but paying twice than a Windows machine should be reflected in something more than just design.

After that I asked for the refund and I got it. They say they could develop something to make it work properly, but if you see how old are the messages about this issue you will understand that's not true. By the way... it could take a couple of weeks... And then, if they don't repair it what should I do if the reound time has expired? Keep it and nothing else.

Good luck with your issues and I hope you solve the problems.

OK So I have just had a call from AppleCare Support. They have had a response from "engineering" and they are aware of the issue using an external montior with the HDMI port. She said it is definitely a software problem with the drivers and they are working to fix it. As soon as an update is released she will notify me so I can install it but she has no timescale of when this will be.

So unfortunately until they fix it I'm stuck using my DisplayPort VGA cable 😟

"and they are working to fix it."

That's what they eventually told me. And that was over 2 months ago. And this problem has been reported for many, many months before that. There really doesn't seem to be any excuse for this delay.

I hope the VGA patch works for you. In my case, the quality of the analog VGA was not an adequate substitute for the digital HDMI.

The wait continues while Apple loses sales and customers.

The VGA cable is a poor substitute for HDMI (plus is doesn't do audio) so I am hoping they fix it soon, but I won't hold my breath.

This definitely needs to be fixed, but can you try DisplayPort to DVI? That worked on my Mac Mini with the same issue.

Yes, it also worked for me! Thank you very much! On my Samsung Full HD Monitor with TV Tuner I also named the HDMI input to PC (and renamed PC to PC DVI). The it was not perfect but absolutely usable, while beforehand it was absolutely unusable, so bad was the text on the monitor. I had a MBP 13'' from mid 2012 with a Minidisplay port to DVI and and DVI-HDMI-Cable.

I had exactly the same problem, and in my case it was an easy fix. OS X thinks my monitor is a TV, and is using the YCbCr colour space rather than RGB. I had to override an EDID setting to force the RGB colour space, and it is now working correctly.

Here's how to do it:

http://ireckon.net/2013/03/force-rgb-mode-in-mac-os-x-to-fix-the-picture-quality -of-an-external-monitor

Thanks for posting that link. I had tried a similar hack on a 15" MBP retina in an effort to get Mountain Lion to handle two external HP displays. Apple had cautioned that such an approach might jeopardize the warranty. I just wanted a machine that worked! It made no improvement on one HP display (via Thunderbold) and only a slight improvement on the other HP display (via HDMI).

What I can't understand is why it is taking Apple so many months to fix this problem. Maybe the flaw runs deeper than it appears? Regardless, I don't want to be forced into hacking code to fix a brand new, top of the line product like a retina MBP!! After all, isn't that one of the reasons we buy Apple products?!

I understand and agree! However, it really isn't such a hack. The script itself is just an easy way to produce an EDID override file, which you could do manually on the command line without the script. The override file is just saying "when this monitor is connected, output this color space". Putting out the wrong settings could cause problems for the monitor, but it's not going to affect the computer. But I still understand yours and anyone else's reluctance.