HDTV monitor not full screen when connected to Powerbok

Dude me too-

Hey bud...I'm right there with you. I went to the genius bar, I've gone online and read a ton of stuff and there's suppose to be a tab in the display preferences called "geometry." If you don't have it your probably burnt. Dude, if you figure it out please let me know... I'm exhausting myself so I can see this work.

Black MacBook, 56'' Samsung DLP 1080p, Black 60 gig iPod

What part of the screen isn't it filling? I have a Samsung 40" LCD TV and there are black bars on the top and bottom.

Reason being? Most widescreen TV's are set up for 16:9 widescreen, while the MacBooks and MacBook Pros are set for 16:10, which is why you get a little bit of a difference. That's the answer I'm thinking.

I'm currently using a 26" Sharp LCD TV as my main monitor. Once the TV knows it's using a computer input (I had to set it to receive digital computer signal) it had another layer of options. One of those options is to tell the TV what resolution signal the computer is outputting, and it adapts its display from there.

I looked at the Sony manual online and on pages 32/33 there is a list of options regarding PC input - these are listed below the standard video input options. You may want to try several of the options in that menu to get the TV to fill the screen. Have you tried using the Auto Adjust option? Or the Wide options that can make the picture fill the screen, either using a constrained aspect ratio or not?

Obviously the ideal option would be to have the Mac match the resolution of the TV perfectly, but as that does not seem to be an option, I would suggest approaching it from the TV settings side.

It sounds like that's the resolution limit for using HDMI. That's funny (not really) but my cousin has a plasma that's 1080i and it's native computer resolution only goes up to 1024x768 which sucks on my MacBook Pro 17".

I even hate that my Samsung 40" only goes to 1366x768. But when I plug my MBP using the VGA, I can chose between a number of resolutions. I'm thinking if you dig through the manual, you may find options and it seems you are going to have to mess with resolution using your TV options. Sorry.

mfacey said:

That may well be true. But given the fact that I can now stream almost everything through my PS3 I'm not going to bother

Click to expand...

Yeah, I helped my cousin set up his PS3 streaming using NullRiver's MediaLink and it works pretty darn good. He hasn't bought it yet, but he likes the fact that he can stream .avi, listen to music and view his pictures. Plus NullRiver is a good company.

I end up hooking my MBP just because there are some files that just don't like to be streaming, like hi-def .mkv's and I like the Front Row interface for some reason (yes I did mean the new one).

mmendoza27 said:

It sounds like that's the resolution limit for using HDMI.

Click to expand...

HDMI can support any resolution that DVI can.

You may want to see this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/412355/

Sounds like the same issue with a simple solution.

Sorry for the late response all, but I have found a solution. I'm using my MacBook Mini DVI to VGA cable which is plugged into the back of my TV. I found it that if you do not use the Mirror display, it allows you to view your computer in full screen. Therefore, it is just like having one big monitor. You can drag windows form one monitor to the other. This was the only solution I found for the full screen problem. Now I can view my iTunes videos in full screen Good luck guys!

Fix for me

Had the same problem with a 50" lg plasma connected to my macbook pro with a dvi-hdmi adapter then hdmi to the tv. The fix was going to display settings while the tv was connected, (the macbooks lcd display settings showed up on the macbooks screen and the plasma's (tv out) settings showed up on the plasma) Made sure the resolution matched my tv (in my case 1080p which was at the bottom of the list) then in the plasma display settings window i click on the options tab, then checked overscan (on). The tv refreshed itself and "voila" - tv went full screen and had amazing picture. Just a note. The macbook pro is running snow leopard just in case that makes a difference.

When connected to your HDTV, select System Preferences > Displays and change the resolution to the highest available under the drop-down menu to convert your resolution to that of your HDTV.