MacBook Pro and 1080p TV - Resolution not 1080?

[delude]

EDIT: This problem was solved with lion and the new option to underscan. That coupled with a custom user setting for the TV displays 1080P perfectly

I have my MacBook Pro hooked up to a 1080p LG LCD TV. There is however no option to select a 1080 resolution!!

1600 x 900 looks beautiful (the colour and calibration) but it doesn't fit to the screen, the edges are overscanned too much.

Is there any way that I can enable the 1080 resolution?

Thanks

 

[spinnerlys]

Have you deselected MIRROR DISPLAYS in System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement?

Does 1920 x 1080 show up in the DISPLAYS Menu Bar Icon?

And what is this 1600 x 900 resolution you speak of?

 

[delude]

Mirrored is not ticked, here are the settings:

32" LG LCD TV (full HD, 1080p)

15" MacBook Pro display

 

[spinnerlys]

Are you sure the TV has a resolution of 1920 x 1080? Full HD is a marketing term and does not really specify as 1920 x 1080.

What is the exact model of the TV?

 

[delude]

Are you sure the TV has a resolution of 1920 x 1080? Full HD is a marketing term and does not really specify as 1920 x 1080.

What is the exact model of the TV?

LG 32LC56. I presumed it had the 1920 x 1080 resolution as the description sticker on the unit had '1080p'...although searching the product now brings up a resolution of '1366 x 768'. Why would they label it as 1080?

EDIT:

Just ticked the 'show displays in menu bar' and noticed a few more options - the resolutions simply say '480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p' although when selected aren't as perfect as I would have thought...perhaps I should try calibrating or something.

 

[Scorch07]

Just out of curiosity how do you have it hooked up? (DVI, VGA, HDMI, etc)

 

[delude]

Just out of curiosity how do you have it hooked up? (DVI, VGA, HDMI, etc)

I have a third party mini displayport to DVI adapter which is connected to a DVI to HDMI cable which goes into the back of my TV

 

[Frosties]

Why NTSC and not PAL if you are in the UK?

 

[delude]

Why NTSC and not PAL if you are in the UK?

The refresh rate doesn't really change the resolution...


I can get it to display in 1080p now (although it's strange that it doesn't actually say 1920 * 1080) but the text isn't very nice and it overscans too much

 

[snaky69]

The refresh rate doesn't really change the resolution...


I can get it to display in 1080p now (although it's strange that it doesn't actually say 1920 * 1080) but the text isn't very nice and it overscans too much

You may be losing some quality with your many adaptors. Otherwise I can't see what's happening.

 

[Frosties]

it overscans too much

Unchecked the overscan box? And try PAL if different results is had due to settings on the TV.

 

[neteng101]

Your TV is not capable of 1920x1080 display, it can take such a resolution as an input, and will downscale the image to 1366x768. So all text will look bad.

Try 720p instead.

 

[Frosties]

Your TV is not capable of 1920x1080 display, it can take such a resolution as an input, and will downscale the image to 1366x768. So all text will look bad.

Try 720p instead.

That's why. Sometimes a tv can take higher input and downscale and perhaps this is the case here. Anyway I think your way is the better way here to minimize loss of picture quality.

 

[delude]

Looks like you're probably correct. 720p doesn't do any justice though, and in fact it's only 1344 x 840 that fits the screen properly, so I guess I will have to stick with that to retain quality.

 

[peterja]

I used switchResX to set the native resolution on my LCD-TV. But you might not be able to do that over HDMI (because of the HDMI receiver chipset) and the only way to run native (1366x768) would be over VGA.

 

[delude]

I used switchResX to set the native resolution on my LCD-TV. But you might not be able to do that over HDMI (because of the HDMI receiver chipset) and the only way to run native (1366x768) would be over VGA.

The nearest I can get over HDMI is 1360 x 768, which fits the screen perfectly!!

Just trying to get it calibrated correctly now, finding the built in settings quite hard to get right (I'm trying to match the Aura background to my MacBook Pro's screen basically, I don't have any calibrating hardware so am stuck with the default apple sliders).

 

[delude]

After looking into things in more detail, it would seem that my LCD TV is perfectly capable of displaying 1920x1080 over the DVI -> HDMI connection.

The following image is from the exported EDID in SwitchResX

As you can see, Descriptor #0 is set to 1920x1080

I looked in the manual for my TV and found the following:

And so I used a guide on another forum to input the settings from the exported EDID into SwitchResX:

Although from here it should seem like things should work, the custom resolution doesn't display in the 'Current Resolutions' section, only the Custom tab.

Anything I can do apart from blindly experimenting?

 

[jkilaita]

uncheck overscan

and look at your tv menu where it asks the size of your screen. you will see 16:9, 4:3, and some type of option that allows the tv to change automatically to whatever the input is

 

[cube]

You can "mirror" if with SwitchResX you define a bogus resolution for the built-in screen equal to that for the external display. The built-in screen will go black when you select this.
This is needed to show the external display at the resolution not supported by the built-in when running on battery.

I thought that selecting a proper resolution for the built-in would enable this screen again, but it seems it will switch to the bogus resolution if you don't remove it.
If you can't use the external display to go back to a built-in resolution, you can zap the PRAM on boot to get the screen back.