Problem Displaying Mac on Plasma TV

[MVallee]

So I have a hard drive filled with videos that I hook to either my MacBook or my brothers MacBook Pro and then connect to my TV to watch. My TV is 42" and has a VGA connector on it so I use the miniDVI-to-VGA adapter and my brother uses the DVI-to-VGA adapter.

I have noticed when using the MacBook Pro some videos appear choppy. Like when the camera pans across something its jittery. I remember when that happened on burned DVDs it was a problem with the frame rate. Sure enough the videos that have problems are 29fps. But they play perfectly on the TV when playing through my MacBook.

What would be causing this problem? Is it something to do with DVI vs. Mini DVI? I have Tiger and the Pro is running Leopard, could that be the problem?

I'm puzzled and I eventually want to buy a Mac Mini to permanently hook to the TV. I don't want this same problem to happen or have to re-encode 1TB of videos.

Anybody know why???

 

[iknowyourider]

My mini is on a 42" plasma. It has dvi-vga and Leopard. I have lots of 700 mb avi movies and 1 gig mp4 movies. I don't think they're choppy. Hope this helps.

 

[MVallee]

Well mine are choppy using the MacBook Pro and are fine using the MacBook.

Anyone know why?

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

First, what software are you using to play those videos files? VLC? Quicktime/iTunes? Plex? Front Row? What file format are the files? .avi, .mov. .mp4, .mp2, etc. I think VGA quality will suck...

 

[MVallee]

The files are .avi and I'm using Front Row with the Perian plug in. Its the same set up for both machines only one runs Tiger and one runs Leopard.

I've used my MacBook hooked up with the mini-DVi-to-VGA adapter for the last 2 years and its worked fine, and still works fine. The quality is actually very good. As good as my HDMI DVD player. It only when my brothers new Macbook Pro is hooked up that the shaky video happens, and it only seems to be on videos with a frame rate of 29 fps.

 

[pilotError]

check the avsforums.com website.

They have a section for this. This sounds familiar to me, but I don't have an answer for you.

 

[MVallee]

Has anyone had this happen? I still can't figure it out. The files play perfectly on the Pro's monitor, but then look choppy on the TV. My MacBook plays them fine all the time though.

Could it be the graphic cards?