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MBP Retina: Poor image quality from hdmi output

Picked up my new MBP Retina yesterday, and as expected, the display is beautiful.

Hooking it up to my two 24'' monitors (both Dell ST2420L) was another story. Colors are badly washed out and fonts look jagged.

I've run the gammut of display settings, and feel pretty confident that's not the issue. I am however open to suggestions.

For a good description of the issue, check out this thread over on the Macbook Air forum: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4080525?start=0&tstart=0 They seem to be experiencing the same thing with the newer MBA's.

One monitor is hooked up via the onboard hdmi port, and the other is hooked up via a mini display to hdmi cable. Both are apple brand cables.

I had an older 2008 Macbook and used the mini display to hdmi cable without this problem.

Headed out to pick up a mini display to dvi adapter to see if that fixes the problem. Will update.

MacBook Pro with Retina display

Posted on Jul 19, 2012 8:45 AM

112 replies

Jul 26, 2015 3:48 AM in response to ehartye

I know this is a *slightly* old post, but I found it via Google. I have a rMBP with a Samsung TV. Long story short, if you have a Samsung TV, click SOURCES, the select the input as "PC". Bang, works a treat.

Sep 16, 2015 2:13 PM in response to ehartye

Hey Guys I think I have found a solution.

I don't have a retina display but share your problem nonetheless. Macbook Pro 2013 running an external Samsung TV monitor vis HDMI which previously looked awful now is perfect using this:

https://www.elgato.com/en/thunderbolt/thunderbolt-2-dock

It cost me $220 which is an expense¡ve solution BUT it DID work. Perfectly. I can see significant improvement. Perfect screen image, with no blurr. Colours are gorgeous.

I think the problem is the built in apple graphics hardware so I took a wild guess that since this claims to offer up to 4K support that it would upgrade the existing graphic output. Effectively you are employing an external graphics card and getting a rather nifty dock to boot It did. Perfectly.

aavrio

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Jan 11, 2016 2:30 AM in response to Lee Jon Chapman

Thank you for your post Lee, it solved the problem for me, too.

I still find it astonishing though that changing the name of the device on your TV can change the quality of the image…

Aug 22, 2016 9:02 AM in response to Scott Litman1

I found the sugguestion in this post to change the Samsung monitor HDMI "name" from HDMI to PC and it was magically fixed.

Helgen

Level 1

9 points

Oct 27, 2016 6:54 PM in response to chicken190

All my years in computer tech, I swear this sounded like the dumbest idea.

Turns out this was the absolutely most incredible fix I've ever read in my life! How the heck did you even find this solution!? It's so weird, my TV has a game mode which I use obviously for that reason, so I usually check that one for better input, but thinking to change the actual name of the input sounds so minuscule yet it completely solved a problem I never thought I could fix!

Thank you so much!!!

Dec 11, 2016 7:15 AM in response to Helgen

Just fixed this on an LG tv with a similar technique for my 2015 MBP Retina running Sierra:

The Input selection for the TV's HDMI port allows a toggle aelection between PC and DTV.

Under PC all coulours washed out; switch to DTV and picture quality a million times better. - actually makes watching live football (soccer) bearable.

Thanks to the original solution poster

Dec 1, 2017 6:06 AM in response to michaelfellis

Thanks, switching to VGA solved the problem for me

MBP Retina: Poor image quality from hdmi output