Black borders : Display size does not fit the full LCD-TV screen size

Likely this is a permenant condition and a limitation of how your TV works through the HDMI port. Even when you have an infeed from "TV programs" which you say do fill the screen, what you are not so aware of is that the edges of the TV programs are also equally too big for the screen. It's just more obvious when it is something like the Mac's menu bar or dock that is off the edge of the screen vs. some part of a TV program. Rarely is there anything so important at the edge of a TV program that you would miss it.

Does your new TV have a VGA input? For some reason it seems many TV makers associate "VGA" with "computer" whereas they think of the HDMI input only for consumer electronics connections like DVD players and cable/satellite boxes. You may find you can get a perfect, pixel-for-pixel display over the VGA input.

I think I can explain that behavior. When the mini is booting, prior to the OS starting up, the graphics board is under control of something called Open Firmware. Under OF there is only full screen operation and no option for overscan. But once the OS starts, then Display Preferences take over, and however you have checked the Overscan box within prefs will determine how the mini behaves from that point on.

Hey BSteely, just FYI for next time, the Intel Mac do not have Open Firmware but EFI. While they do equivalent things they are not the same.

Agree with you - type of TV does apparently not matter. Have exact the same experience with my JVC LT-32A61SU!
Appears to be experienced one way or the other by most trying to connect to a flat-screen TV!

So what exactly is the resolution of your TV?

Are you able to set the screen resolution to 1366 x 768 in the Displays System Preference?

Ok, I get that, but how could it help me fix my
display problem ?
Should Apple provide a solution ?
Is there a third-party software around we could use
?

I'm surprised no more mac-mini-users complained...

Fanoo, this type of question has been asked numerous times on this forum - and for a reason. This is a very common problem, and if technically possible, Apple should provide some kind of solution to us all, because it's a major concern.

I received my Mac mini Core Duo a week ago, and I can't tell you how many hours I've spent trying to get an even readable picture on my Sharp Aquos 32" LCD HDTV (LC32DA5U) at resolutions higher than 800x600!

I'm very much a beginner in this field (and don't event want to become an expert, because this should just be plug-and-play), but this is what I've learnt so far...

1. If you have VGA input on your TV, use it!
2. If you have DVI input on your TV, use it!
3. If you only have HDMI input on your TV (like me), you're not likely to get a good result!
4. You probably want to use a utility like SwitchRes X or DisplayConfigX to enable custom resolutions for your TV monitor in the Display Preference pane (I've had the best results with SwitchResX
5. On the AVS forum, search for avramd's posts. This one summarizes his findings. He has also made a SwitchRes X Helper page that guides you through the process of fine tuning your settings
6. If your TV manual doesn't provide you with the technical specs that you need (which mine doesn't), click the "Export DDC" button in SwitchRes X to generate a text file with the settings from your TV

With SwitchRes X I've managed to get a 1344x756 image on my TV with a minimal top/bottom black border and loosing a few pixels in the width. My TV is 1366x768 natively, but setting the resolution to this (or 1360x768 for dimensions dividable by 8), causes my TV goes blank. Again, I think it has to do with the HDMI interface.

Hope this helps, let us know if you have any success!

Then I would suggest that you try a product called SwitchResX…

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/15467

Please be careful with this if your TV is the only display you can use. The problem is that sometimes you can get caught with your pants down if the TV decides that it can't display your chosen resolution and does not display anything. For this I normally recommend you find a friend with a PowerBook/MacBook/MacBook Pro (even a PC laptop) to play around to see if you can find the right display settings before doing this with your Mac mini.

While the screen resolution change should ask you to confirm it it does not quiet work out that way 100% of the time. If you do get a black screen do nothing and wait for the time out for it to revert to the original settings.

my pants are down…

Try resetting the SMC…

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303446