Connecting MBP to Plasma TV

[Nik73]

Evening ladies and gents,

I'm after a bit of advice to go about the best way of connecting my unibody MBP to my Panasonic TH42-PX80 so I can watch NFL Gamepass on a nice big screen. I can already connect via VGA but the problem is the games are shown in widescreen that has small bars top and bottom. Unfortunately, when connected to the tv the bars are a lot bigger. Also unfortunately on my tv you can't change the aspect ratio (wide, zoom, etc) when something's connected by VGA.

Soooo I was looking at getting this... Apple mini displayport to DVI adapter..... but my tv doesn't have DVI, so I was also going to get this.... HDMI to DVI cable to connect to an HDMI socket.

My question is this. As HDMI and DVI-D are both digital signals I shouldn't need anything else? The signal doesn't need to be converted or anything right?

Thanks very much in advance.

 

[naelamer]

I have KANEX mini display port to HDMI adapter and its just a matter to connect, but keep in mind no audio even through HDMI, but if u wait another month KANEX will release an adapter which gonna mix an audio from USB port and video from mini display port to 1 HDMI port where u gonna have video and audio.

 

[iCheddar]

The previous poster is correct, but another option to look at is monoprice's offerings. They'll even sell you a cable that adapts from minidisplayport to straight-up male HDMI, no extra HDMI cable to buy.

Monoprice to HDMI Cables

And if you're using your PX80 with a sound system as well, I'd think about picking up a toslink adapter & cable, so you can run pure digital audio into it.

Toslink adapter

Toslink Cables

And may I also add that I'm so jealous that you've got a PX80. The 2008 Panasonic plasmas were the way to go. In order to meet energy star 3.0 this year they had to cut power consumption waaay down on their sets, which meant limiting their brightness considerably.

The PX80 was a superior set to the PX1 for these '09 sets. Alas...that's what I get for waiting to buy.

 

[iCheddar]

Oh, you might also have to futz with your Macbook's resolution settings, or the overscan settings on your TV in order to get the correct aspect ratio.

AFAIK, your tv, despite being a 720p set, has an actual resolution of 1024x768, not the traditional 1366x768 of most 720p displays.

 

[Nik73]

Thanks for the advice guys, much appreciated. I went for the mini displayport to hdmi adapter and already have one of the toslink adapters. I'm used to messing about with resolutions when I set my PC up last year. I've picked up a copy of DisplayConfigX which seems to be the Mac equivalent of MultiRes to help.

Yeah, the PX80 is an awesome tv. I love it. Mine had a few issues with image retention at first but it soon got over it. It was only going to be a short term tv until I could afford a bigger one, but don't feel the need now.