Just connected a US purchased 2011 mac mini with OSX Sierra to a UK HDTV using a hdmi cable and I’m getting a white screen? Is this an NTSC / PAL issue and if so is there a way to change a mac mini display output from NTSC to PAL?
Mac mini, macOS Sierra (10.12.6), null
A European HDTV should be able to play both PAL or NTSC without issue.
Have you seen the Mac Mini having a working output to any other screen? (I.e. is the hardware okay?)
Have you seen the TV having a working output on that HDMI port? The issue might be that the TV isn’t set to receive input from the connected HDMI port yet.
You could do some general troubleshooting, such as sleep-wake, booting in Safe Mode, Reset the NVRAM/PRAM, Reset SMC.
Get help with video issues on external displays connected to your Mac - Apple Support
A European HDTV should be able to play both PAL or NTSC without issue.
Have you seen the Mac Mini having a working output to any other screen? (I.e. is the hardware okay?)
Have you seen the TV having a working output on that HDMI port? The issue might be that the TV isn’t set to receive input from the connected HDMI port yet.
You could do some general troubleshooting, such as sleep-wake, booting in Safe Mode, Reset the NVRAM/PRAM, Reset SMC.
Get help with video issues on external displays connected to your Mac - Apple Support
Ok thanks, we’ll do some more troubleshooting.
The mac mini was working fine via hdmi on my monitor and the HDTV was working fine with HDMI via other devices such as dvd players etc. so hardware seems ok. Anyway good to hear this should be possible!
All Macs should be able to do both NSTC and PAL.
The Mac should use EDID information sent down the cable from the display to detect what standards the display supports and set itself to match - however I have seen some TVs issue incomplete information.
Yes you normally can tell the Mac whether to use NTSC or PAL, this is in the System Preferences -> Displays preference pane. If you have two Macs you could have Screen Sharing turned on on the Mac mini so you can remote control it to view and alter settings whilst it is having a problem.
Mac minis are not really capable of 4K so if your TV is a 4K display this might be confusing the Mac mini, 1080p should not be a problem. The 2011 model Mac mini did seem to have its own issues with HDMI and we ended up using an active Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter to get round this a passive adapter was not sufficient. Our problem was the screen intermittently going black.
Connecting US purchased mac mini to UK TV via hdmi?
