MBP 2011 13" and Viewsonic VX2453MH...hdmi very dark vs vga

[webazoid]

I'm running a macbook pro 13" 2011 w/ i5 and Viewsonic VX2453MH. Through the display port, I got three adapters. One DP to hdmi from monoprice, an DP to hdmi from ebay, and DP to VGA from monoprice. When I first tried the ebay HDMI converter, I was like, "gosh, this viewsonic monitor sucks...the screen's kinda dark". then i tried the monoprice hdmi converter..."bleh, ,it's also dark". then i hook up hdmi cable to my windows 7 laptop...looked nice a bright. then i tried monoprice DP to VGA...also looked nice and bright. that lead me to conclude that there must be something wrong w/ the 2011 mbp and the hdmi converter. Not sure if it's from viewsonic standpoint, or from the mbp, or from the hdmi converters. I then proceed to try out the spyder to calibrate my screen. It calibrates fine w/ the vga adapters. With the hdmi adapter, it says the color is less than 150 and doens't meet the target 180. Not sure where the problem is.