Horrible-looking video with Dell Projector

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Level 1

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Horrible-looking video with Dell Projector

Hi guys,

Forgive me for posting anything regarding compatibility with a Dell projector - I had no choice. A customer had a room set up with a Dell DLP projector. The MBP recognized it just fine. However, the video output (using the VGA dongle) was just horrible. The video looked low brightness, and very high contrast. Subtle gradients were absolutely atrocious looking. The output when driving with a Dell Laptop looked much better.

Hooking up the VGA output to a Dell LCD monitor, and to a Sony CRT monitor looks just fabulous, however.

Do you guys have any idea why the video would look so horrible, and what I might be able to do to correct it, outside of buying my own projector?

Sincerely,

Rob

MBP 2Gig Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on May 8, 2006 9:20 PM

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Answer 1

May 8, 2006 10:23 PM in response to RHL

I'm guessing you need to calibrate using ColorSync.

System Preferences->Displays select the Color tab.

Probably the easiest thing is to try different pre-set calibration settings. Uncheck the box that says, "Show profiles for this display only," if necessary. You want one with the PC gamma which is different than the standard Mac gamma. I don't know which setting will work best but it is pretty easy to go through them while hooked up to the projector and see what looks good. If nothing does, use the Calibrate button and do a new calibration for the projector.

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Answer 2

krypttic

Level 2

493 points

May 8, 2006 11:25 PM in response to Jim Bailey

Same horrible picture for me with a Dell 2300 projector. I can get a decent picture by changing the projector to VGA setting (within the projector's menus). If I put it on movie or DVI, it's all screwy.

Note, however that the VGA setting isn't very color accurate at all...

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Answer 3

RHL Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 11, 2006 10:13 AM in response to RHL

I have been able to resolve this by going to "Displays Preferences" and changing the color Display Profile to "Generic RGB". This solved most all the color problem.

Sincerely,

Rob

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Answer 4

Oct 11, 2006 10:36 AM in response to RHL

You're going to get horrible colors with 99% of all the projectors out there, especially the way most conference rooms are setup.

Things I've noticed that really help with the de-facto business standard of Dell projectors.

1) Use a white background. (yes it really, ***** to make UGLY keynote presentations). But unless the room is pitch dark, black, and especially the gradient black look horrible.

2) Always design for 1024x768, 99% of all the projectors are still stuck at this resolution.

3) Keep stuff away from the edges of the screen, the Dell's destort the edges pretty bad, and often the setup in the conference room makes the image crooked on the wall/screen

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