Q: MBP Retina: Poor image quality from hdmi output

Are you on 10.8.2?

GaJ

Hi GreenAsJade,

I am indeed.

Dave

I too am using 10.8.2 and have seen no improvement after upgrading.

I posted on this back in July, when I received my rMBP.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/18831591#18831591

It is absolutely a driver/software issue, as DisplayPort works beautifully in Windows 7 under Boot Camp.  In addition to jagged text on the Mac side, the computer does not appear to be outputting RGB, as my color remapping options were greyed out on the HP DreamColor (indicating a YUV feed).  I imagine they're doing this to be more compatible with TV's, but at least they should give us an option to switch it over.  I suspect this is how they can claim the ability to drive three external displays, as a YUV signal uses less bandwidth than a standard RGB one.

Since you have proven this is a driver issue, and I agree with that, what has Apple said? Are they going to address this anytime soon?

This is crap, I am trying to move away from Windows and this is actually the last issue stopping me from doing that.

I'm having the same problem with a 15" MBP retina. I connected a 27" Samsung screen using the hdmi port.

The colors are bad (as compared to connectie the screen to other pcs), the fonts looks pixelated and video performance is bad when displaying 720p content or higher in fullscreen. Changing some color profiles does seem to help a bit but overal no staisfying result for a 2900$ laptop..

Just chimin' in to say I noticed the same thing with my brand new 2012 Mac Mini and Dell U2410 when hooked up HDMI to HDMI.

Spent the last 24 hours going nuts because suddenly this monitor looked absolutely horrible.  Fonts were jagged and hard to read, greys were washed out, oranges and greens were over emphasized and unnatural.  This was not how I remembered the monitor looking previously when it was hooked up to my 2011 Macbook Pro via Mini DP to DVI.  Screwed around with the brightness / contrast of the U2410 to no avail,  I could only ever get things looking somewhat less horrible, and I wasn't about to dive into the custom color settings, after all I was always happy with the preset options before so I shouldn't have to go there.

So,  I hooked up the Mini DP to DVI connected from the Mini's thunderbolt port, left the HDMI in place, and toggled between the DVI / HDMI inputs on the U2410.  I can confirm that in my case at least, the problem seems to be specific to using the HDMI out of the Mac Mini -  my speculation (as others have said) is that OS X is processing the HDMI output differently than the Thunderbolt / Mini DP output.  Perhaps to lend itself better to tv watching  ( as if looking at over saturated colors, blinding brightness, and washed out greys and blacks is to be considered "better" )

I also am having this type of issue with my MBPr.  In bootcamp, it displays without issue at 1920x1080 (full HD) via the HDMI out to the HDMI in on my 40" display.  The minute I boot into the Mac side, it detects much lower if I allow "best for display" and if I scale and overscan to 1920x1080 it is horrible, with jagged lines, slow processing, etc.  Playing GW2 on the bootcamp side, again everything works right off the bat at full HD.  Back to native 10.8.2, GW2 only runs at some odd 1380xsomething and is horrible and laggy.  So what I'm left with at this moment is a very expensive Windows laptop.  Netflix is also unusable on the Mac side but completely awesome on the Windows side.  This is definitely a HDMI implementation issue and I'd have to say driver specific, as the Bootcamp drivers have no issue, only the MAC side, please Apple fix this soon!

Same issue with HDMI on my HP external display at home and my Dell external display at work. Have been using Thunderbolt-VGA for the past 4 months on both because the text, resolution and clarity is several times better than the nastiness I'm getting out of the HDMI. This is really unfortunate.. what's the point of Apple bragging about introducing an HDMI port when it doesn't play well with any of the major manufacturers?

Haven't updated to the new OS yet, maybe I'll give that a shot...

Updated today. No difference I'm afraid.

Dave

I have the same problem with the macbook air 2012, hdmi = horrible colors

I just hooked up my brand new Macbook Pro (15") w/ Retina display to a 1080p HP  monitor and I was blown away at how horrible the image on my connected display looked.  I found this thread and it appears that there is a real problem here...  A direct HDMI to HDMI connection pushed out a jagged and washed out image.  My MBP from 2009 looked fantastic connected to this monitor!  I'm not sure what to do now... as I primarily work connected to an external display when designing.  Nobody should be forced to buy 4 different $30 adaptors to find out what looks best, when the HDMI (high-def) output should be the  obvious choice for the best picture quality.  I did find that a HDMI-DVI cable looked better (as far as text is concerned) but the overall image quality and color saturation still *****.  Apple, please let us know if there is going to be driver/ firmware update soon or the computer will be coming back.

I have a brand new Macbook Pro 15" Retina that I hooked up to my Eizo Foris FS2331 screen vith a HDMI to HDMI cable. The quality was terrible as many others have stated in this forum. After a while I found a setting in the Eizo screen menues, "Changing the HDCP authentication from normal to extended" . I dont know what this meens but when I changed to extended, the picture quality is great.

Hello! I just want to share my experience with that issue. I have a Samsung 46B8000 led TV. After I upgrade my Mac with an SSD (I've done a fresh install of mountain lion) I experience bad quality on the TV (over MDP to DVI adaptor, and a DVI to HDMI cable) , it was working very well on Lion... At the same time I also upgraded my TV firmware. After lots of trial and error I finally found the solution. For my particular case, ML have nothing to do with that. It's an option on the TV, on the Sources menu, it is necessary to edit the name of hdmi1 to PC or PC DVI. Yes, the NAME, not some setting or picture option... How would've thought? And you have to set 1080p 60 Hz on the MAC, otherwise it will not have good quality. Final conclusion is that poorly designed software on the Samsung TV was the main problem! I hope this works for others too...

OK Apple. This is going on long enough. Anyone got any idea how to get their attention?

I buy mac and pay a premium because I expect it to work.

If this is some attempt to push us to buy cinema displays you've lost a loyal customer.