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hooked up macbook to hdtv....can I up the res?

M

Malus

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 19, 2005
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Hey all, I FINALLY got everything I need to hook my macbook to my new samsung HDTV :) and I'm loving it!

The only thing that could be better is if I can up the resolution a little bit more. As of right now its 1360x768 and its plugged into the VGA jack.

Is it possible to get a VGA to HDMI box converter to make the res higher??


Thanks for your input!
 
Well, did you get a 720p or 1080p HDTV? If it's a 720p, then no, I don't think you can go any higher.

If it's 1080p and you should be able to go higher, then you'll want to use DVI, not VGA, to connect. A "VGA to HDMI" converter would be pointless, because you're still converting from an analog (VGA) to digital (HDMI) signal, which is exactly what's happening inside the TV already when you connect with VGA.

You need to get a DVI cable and (assuming your TV doesn't have any DVI ports) a DVI->HDMI adapter. That will give you the best possible picture quality and probably more resolution options. A DVI signal remains digital -- when it leaves your MacBook, it's still digital, unlike VGA which has to be converted to analog for the transmission and then reconverted to digital once it reaches its destination. That's why DVI is better.
 
Thanks for your help! Um, so let me make sure I know what you are saying.


[macbook]--[mini dvi to dvi]--[dvi to hdmi box]--HDTV?

And it says that it goes up to 1080i....is that still good? Cause I read that 1080i and 1080p are almost the same.
 
Malus said:
[macbook]--[mini dvi to dvi]--[dvi to hdmi box]--HDTV?
Click to expand...

Yep, that's the idea. That's the purest way to output to the HDTV.

Malus said:
And it says that it goes up to 1080i....is that still good? Cause I read that 1080i and 1080p are almost the same.
Click to expand...

That's kind of a sticky subject. It all depends on how you look at it. I'd suggest reading some of the articles from this Google search.
 
It sounds like it's a 1360x768 panel that can accept 1080i and 720p signals. This would qualify as "HD Ready" although, in my opinion, you have been scammed by the manufacturer as this screen cannot display a 720p signal without scaling (or using black bars) and cannot display all of the pixels in a 1080i signal at all.

This sort of screen was very common over the last year and the advertising has caught a lot of people out. They assumed when they were told that it could handle 1080i input that it could display this. Unfortunately it does this by downsampling to 1360x768.

If you told us the exact make and model of the screen we could try and find out...
 
robbieduncan said:
It sounds like it's a 1360x768 panel that can accept 1080i and 720p signals. This would qualify as "HD Ready" although, in my opinion, you have been scammed by the manufacturer as this screen cannot display a 720p signal without scaling (or using black bars) and cannot display all of the pixels in a 1080i signal at all.

This sort of screen was very common over the last year and the advertising has caught a lot of people out. They assumed when they were told that it could handle 1080i input that it could display this. Unfortunately it does this by downsampling to 1360x768.

If you told us the exact make and model of the screen we could try and find out...
Click to expand...


Oh no, thats not good :(
Anyway, here is my tv I got.
http://samsung.com/Products/TV/LCDTV/LNT2354HXXAA.asp
 
robbieduncan said:
Samsung don't state the native resolution of the panel but a quick Google shows that it is 1366 x 768. So even if you manage to get your Mac to output a higher resolution it'll get resized to this resolution making everything look very unsharp and nasty.

Sorry, you got caught out by the marketing...
Click to expand...

*does the darth vader NOOOOOOOOOO*

well that stinks. Oh well...better luck next time i suppose.
 
Well, you didn't *completely* get caught by the marketing. There aren't any LCD televisions of that size that will do 1080p inputs, at least none I've ever seen. It's pretty much a given that sets are only 720p until you get up to at least 37", at which point they can go either way, because when you're watching television you wouldn't notice a difference in 720 versus 1080 on such a small screen.
 
Well, ive come to cope with the larger resolution. However, it seems like there is a black bar going along the left side of the screen. would HDMI connection fix at least that? Or am I to live with it forever? lol. :eek:
 
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