Connecting a macbook to a tv?

[boston04and07]

Hey guys, sorry if this question is either really obvious or has been discussed (although I couldn't find it in the forums), but can a Macbook be hooked up to a widescreen television with a 16:10 aspect ratio? I thought it was only compatible with 16:9, so I figured I'd better ask just to be on the safe side.

Once again thanks and sorry about having to ask such a silly question

 

[me_94501]

Hey guys, sorry if this question is either really obvious or has been discussed (although I couldn't find it in the forums), but can a Macbook be hooked up to a widescreen television with a 16:10 aspect ratio? I thought it was only compatible with 16:9, so I figured I'd better ask just to be on the safe side.

Once again thanks and sorry about having to ask such a silly question

The MacBook screen is 16:10, so I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work...

And there's no such thing as a silly question! OK, maybe there is, but if you don't know something it still doesn't hurt to ask.

 

[boston04and07]

Ohhh well then, that makes sense! I guess that really was a silly question after all. Thanks a bunch!

 

[tsice19]

Ohhh well then, that makes sense! I guess that really was a silly question after all. Thanks a bunch!

No, not really.

How are you planning to hook it up?

 

[dino0829]

Don't know about aspect ratio but ...

If you're looking for a connector, this should work here. I use a similar thing connecting my old iBook to the TV (not widescreen) and it works great.

 

[boston04and07]

Well, I have a connector I bought at the Apple Store a while back that plugs into my mini-DVI port, but it turned out that the tv I had at the time wasn't compatible with my Macbook (it had an S-video port but wasn't widescreen). I was planning on getting a new tv sometime, anyways, so I just kept the mini-DVI cable. Now, a few months later, I'm finally starting to look at some tv's, and didn't want to make the same mistake! So I guess I'll just be using the mini-DVI connector with whichever tv I decide on, since I'm making sure that it will have all the necessary ports and a 16:10 aspect ratio.

I'm really just doing this so that I can watch movies, since my burned DVDs don't play in my DVD player - does all this sound like it'll work?

Thanks, guys!

 

[boston04and07]

Ooh, I also just thought of something else, is there a size limit on which tv's a Macbook can handle? The ones I'm looking at are small, only around 19-22" or so, but I do have a much larger one that doesn't seem to work with my computer.

 

[mcavjame]

You want a mini DVI to DVI and then use a DVI to HDMI cable. My widescreen looks awesome with this setup.

 

[Skeletal-dæmon]

Yes and no. If you are connecting via the Apple DVI to Composite/S-video adapter, and you choose composite, in all three instances I have tried the MacBook (and my Mac Mini) always assumed that you were connected to a 4:3 television no matter what.

I don't know about S-video because only one of the TVs in the house supports PAL60 (American TVs and therefore the American standard S-video run at 60Hz NTSC; European, Latin American, African, and Australasian - with the exception of France which uses SECAM - run at 50Hz PAL) and that TV has a DVI in anyway so I never tired.

If you connect through VGA, DVI or HDMI then yes, it should work okay although some brands of Samsung TVs don't like DVI signals from Apple machines.

Good luck getting it to work!

 

[fedup flyer]

I have connected my Macbook to tvs in Luxembourg, China, Italy, Khaskstan and of course the US, with S-Video you will get 4x3 no matter what.

If you want full resoultion of a 16x9 on a 16x9 set you can go with VGA, DVI or HDMI. Word of caution on the VGA, make sure you have a 15 pin VGA cable and not a more comonly available 14 pin.

 

[Ctictoc]

Don't know about the macbook....

....but my macbookpro connected up just fine with a dvi-hdmi adaptor i got in argos. My tv is an 37" acoustic solutions I got in argos as well, I tried the same with my powermacg4 which has an ati radeon 9000pro but it won't work, has anyone solved that problem

 

[boston04and07]

Thanks so much for all the useful information I found out stuff that I never would have even thought to ask, like what cables to use (turns out the old cables I had wouldn't even work with a new tv to begin with!) So, what I'm going to do is, buy a widescreen tv with an HDMI input on Massachusetts' tax-free weekend. Then, get two cables - a mini-DVI to DVI and a DVI to HDMI. You guys just saved me a few more posts down the road!

 

[boston04and07]

Okay, so I just got the television and both of the cables. Everything is hooked up, yet the Macbook's display isn't mirrored on the television screen, which is just displaying a message saying "Unsupported Mode." Any ideas?

EDIT: I just managed to get my Macbook to display on the television, but it'll only do that if I set the Macbook's resolution to 1152 x 720, for some reason, which means that the picture doesn't fill the tv's screens but instead leaves two 1" black bars on either side. They're both the same aspect ratio so this shouldn't happen, right?? Also, the image quality isn't that great, and everything looks choppy and pixillated.