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MacBook Pro on 50" Plasma TV Quality

T

Tee.Nutter

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 9, 2009
103
0
UK
Hey All,

Just got my shiny new Macbook Pro yesterday (as per signature). It's amazing looking forward to putting it through its paces with CS5 Photoshop, After Effects and Premier Pro :D

I had already bought the MiniDisplay to HDMI adapter, connected it upto my receiver and it worked like a dream, picture and sound straight away.

Only issue I have at the moment is that my TV is 1080p and I have set that as the display setting, but it doesn't look too great, especially the text!

Anyone have ideas for improvement

Thanks
 
I am not an expert at all with these stuff but from what i've heard before HDMI Cables with golden covered yellow endings are a better transmitter. You can buy one of those HDMI cables. IDK if it would make a difference and i am not guaranteeing anything. Also when i buy my MBP i will connect it to my 46" LED Tv. That's why i hope you come up with a solution. And when you do please let us know. Cause as i said before, i'll do the same.
 
I did get quite a good quality HDMI cable, so don't think that would be the cause of it.

No it's a Pioneer KURO TV
 
emir said:
I am not an expert at all with these stuff but from what i've heard before HDMI Cables with golden covered yellow endings are a better transmitter. You can buy one of those HDMI cables. IDK if it would make a difference and i am not guaranteeing anything. Also when i buy my MBP i will connect it to my 46" LED Tv. That's why i hope you come up with a solution. And when you do please let us know. Cause as i said before, i'll do the same.
Click to expand...

This is completely false information. HDMI is a digital signal, meaning a lot of 1110101010 sent over the cable. If some of the 110101 didn't make it through the cable it would cause worse effects than bad text. A $5 cable will have the exact same picture quality as a $500 cable with gold endings.

On topic, I have a Samsung 50" and also think the picture doesn't look too good. I had a Mac mini and a smaller Samsung before, it looked the same with that setup as well. Playing video looks fine I think, it seems to be just the desktop.
 
Well, with a Samsung, and perhaps other TVs/HDMI connected monitors, you have to tell the monitor it's receiving its source from a PC as it's processed differently from other sources (Blu-ray, consoles etc.). To do that on my Samsung 23" Samsung 2333HD, I had to go into the menus, find the 'sources' list, find the HDMI port you're connected up to, edit the name/type and change it to 'PC'.

This sorted all the weird colour and aliasing effects I had when I first connected up. I nearly sent it straight back to Amazon, but with a lot of forum trawling I found this neat trick that isn't documented anywhere in the manuals!

Caution should also be used when choosing your HDMI port because they are different on some monitors.

Incidentally, my Macbook Pro is connected with a £4 HDMI cable and looks great.
 
A friend has a great picture on his Samsung B750 52" hooked up to his
Mac Mini. He says he got better picture not using the hdmi, but the pc (vga?)input.
 
1920x1080 on a 50" screen - fonts etc won't look that great at all unless you are at the optimum viewing distance.

Expand on what you mean.
 
trondah said:
This is completely false information. HDMI is a digital signal, meaning a lot of 1110101010 sent over the cable. If some of the 110101 didn't make it through the cable it would cause worse effects than bad text. A $5 cable will have the exact same picture quality as a $500 cable with gold endings.
Click to expand...

It's all about the one's and zero's. You either get them or you don't, quality will not change with a more expensive cable! I bought some < $1 6ft HDMI cables from Amazon and they work the same if not better than some $150+ Monster cables I have used. Somewhere on the internets there is a comparison of HDMI cables to wire coat-hangers, don't believe the digital cable myth!

Anyways, I have a 56" Samsung DLP LED, and the quality seems as expected. You shouldn't expect great quality when you take essentially the same resolution as a MBP HiRes and blow it up to 56".
 
A 50" TV at 1080p is pretty low res in computer display terms. Think about how the 17" MBP is 1920x1200 and you'll see why.

Also, there used to be some issues with plasma TVs and pixel shape that made them not so great computer monitors.

HDMI cable doesn't matter. If there were cable problems they would be very noticeable with random blocks showing on the screen or missing sound.

BTW, I'm jealous for that KURO :)
 
Chapowski said:
Well, with a Samsung, and perhaps other TVs/HDMI connected monitors, you have to tell the monitor it's receiving its source from a PC as it's processed differently from other sources (Blu-ray, consoles etc.). To do that on my Samsung 23" Samsung 2333HD, I had to go into the menus, find the 'sources' list, find the HDMI port you're connected up to, edit the name/type and change it to 'PC'.

This sorted all the weird colour and aliasing effects I had when I first connected up. I nearly sent it straight back to Amazon, but with a lot of forum trawling I found this neat trick that isn't documented anywhere in the manuals!

Caution should also be used when choosing your HDMI port because they are different on some monitors.

Incidentally, my Macbook Pro is connected with a £4 HDMI cable and looks great.
Click to expand...

Hmm will try and mess with the TV settings and see if that makes any difference.

Kilamite said:
1920x1080 on a 50" screen - fonts etc won't look that great at all unless you are at the optimum viewing distance.

Expand on what you mean.
Click to expand...

Yeah did think of that and went to back of room about 5m away and still didn't look too good.

Good in the sense that when I played a 1080p video on MacBook I expected it to be as good as my Pioneer Blu Player. The text is really jagged around the edges and not smooth like on the MacBook Pro

peppermg said:
It's all about the one's and zero's. You either get them or you don't, quality will not change with a more expensive cable! I bought some < $1 6ft HDMI cables from Amazon and they work the same if not better than some $150+ Monster cables I have used. Somewhere on the internets there is a comparison of HDMI cables to wire coat-hangers, don't believe the digital cable myth!

Anyways, I have a 56" Samsung DLP LED, and the quality seems as expected. You shouldn't expect great quality when you take essentially the same resolution as a MBP HiRes and blow it up to 56".
Click to expand...

I kinda figured with the MacBook Pro screen being blown upto 50" in theory wouldn't look too good, but thought with it being digital HDMI I would not lose any quality
 
mdatwood said:
A 50" TV at 1080p is pretty low res in computer display terms. Think about how the 17" MBP is 1920x1200 and you'll see why.

Also, there used to be some issues with plasma TVs and pixel shape that made them not so great computer monitors.

HDMI cable doesn't matter. If there were cable problems they would be very noticeable with random blocks showing on the screen or missing sound.

BTW, I'm jealous for that KURO :)
Click to expand...

Yeah I see what you mean, it does make sense, guess I just expected it to be better than it is.

I have a few HDMI cables for my audio/video stuff, I didn't really bother trying them to be honest, as I didn't think it would make much of a difference.

HeHe the Kuro really is amazing, think I pretty much got the last ones they were rolling off the line (took nearly 2 months from ordering). Got the Pioneer Blu Ray Player with a Pioneer receiver and some lovely piano black Monitor Audio Radius HD speakers for the surround sound :cool:
 
go way the kuro.. :)

i was gonna get one but alas they stopped making them now :(

any how i have an older pioneer and its just bad for a desktop or external monitor but films play super on it, just every thing else is a bad quality picture i have found this on all crt/lcd/plasma tvs never used an external monitor but tvs are rank...
 
Tee.Nutter said:
Hmm will try and mess with the TV settings and see if that makes any difference.



Yeah did think of that and went to back of room about 5m away and still didn't look too good.

Good in the sense that when I played a 1080p video on MacBook I expected it to be as good as my Pioneer Blu Player. The text is really jagged around the edges and not smooth like on the MacBook Pro



I kinda figured with the MacBook Pro screen being blown upto 50" in theory wouldn't look too good, but thought with it being digital HDMI I would not lose any quality
Click to expand...

You aren't losing any quality, you're simply making the image too large for that resolution. Fonts aren't going to be pretty.

Also plasma displays use dithering and all kinds of other techniques to display the image. This tends not to be as smooth for things like a computer display (vs LCD) but the end result is great video and fewer problems with motion blur.
 
emir said:
I am not an expert at all with these stuff but from what i've heard before HDMI Cables with golden covered yellow endings are a better transmitter. You can buy one of those HDMI cables. IDK if it would make a difference and i am not guaranteeing anything. Also when i buy my MBP i will connect it to my 46" LED Tv. That's why i hope you come up with a solution. And when you do please let us know. Cause as i said before, i'll do the same.
Click to expand...

As others have pointed out before me, this is WRONG.
There is one simple advice when buying HDMI cables: Do NOT go to a retail store, go online and find the cheapest possible cable (I've bought them for ~4 bucks, seen the very same ones for ten times more and worse in retail stores) and you will get the exact same image quality for much, much less money. Do NOT under any circumstances believe the "super-premium golden connector with awesome picture quality", because it is completely wrong.
 
Chapowski said:
Well, with a Samsung, and perhaps other TVs/HDMI connected monitors, you have to tell the monitor it's receiving its source from a PC as it's processed differently from other sources (Blu-ray, consoles etc.). To do that on my Samsung 23" Samsung 2333HD, I had to go into the menus, find the 'sources' list, find the HDMI port you're connected up to, edit the name/type and change it to 'PC'.

This sorted all the weird colour and aliasing effects I had when I first connected up. I nearly sent it straight back to Amazon, but with a lot of forum trawling I found this neat trick that isn't documented anywhere in the manuals!

Caution should also be used when choosing your HDMI port because they are different on some monitors.

Incidentally, my Macbook Pro is connected with a £4 HDMI cable and looks great.
Click to expand...
I too have a Samsung 23" and I connected the MBP to the "PC" input via Apple's MDP ->VGA adaptor and it looks awesome...:D
 
Ronnoco said:
I too have a Samsung 23" and I connected the MBP to the "PC" input via MDP ->VGA connector and it looks awesome...:D
Click to expand...

Someone else metioned that too. My TV does have a VGA input, dunno if it's worth buying the cable to "check" if it's any better though
 
Tee.Nutter said:
Someone else metioned that too. My TV does have a VGA input, dunno if it's worth buying the cable to "check" if it's any better though
Click to expand...

I was surprised at how good the desktop looked in VGA...the colors matched perfectly and the text was crisp black and clear without jaggies...I chose the VGA input for two reasons:
1. I had read that the "PC" input is better matched for computer video output and the "PC" input also has it's own dedicated audio input
2. There is only one "HDMI" input on this panel and I use that for my HDDVR

The Samsung also looks fantastic with video. I watched "The Book Of Eli" in 720p off the MBP through the Samsung and it looked incredible...
 
peppermg said:
It's all about the one's and zero's. You either get them or you don't, quality will not change with a more expensive cable! I bought some < $1 6ft HDMI cables from Amazon and they work the same if not better than some $150+ Monster cables I have used. Somewhere on the internets there is a comparison of HDMI cables to wire coat-hangers, don't believe the digital cable myth!
Click to expand...

Isn't that exactly what I said? :)
 
Vga

I second VGA, mini-DVI-VGA cable, MacBook Core 2 Duo connected to Samsung 40" 1080p LCD and the pic is perfect. You need to get the right VGA cable for Samsung TVs though, the ones with all the pins connected.
 
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