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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Setting up monitor
jbbevan - Jun 21, 2006 - 10:17 am
We just bought a new HDTV monitor (Syntax Olevia LT27HVX). It has resolution up to 1366 x 768 and is a 16:9 aspect ratio.
It has both DVI and VGA inputs. I bought a DVI cable and connected our Mac Mini CoreDuo directly to it.
So far so good...
When we turn it on and "Detect Display" the Mac sets it up as a "GenericRGB". However, the resolutions available are all 4:3 (if you divide them out and do the math). The screen is filled with the Mac desktop top to bottom and side to side. It's OK for computing.
However, if we open Quicktime (Pro) and play a 1.85 aspect movie at "Full Screen" there is 2 or 3" of black bar above and below the picture (and the actors are shorter and fatter than they ought to be).
Bottom line: even though the display is 16:9 (native), the Mac "thinks" it is 4:3 and only gives me resolution optons of that aspect ratio.
Now the question....
Is there any way to overide the Mac setup and get to all the resolutions available so that we can choose one that plays the Quicktime properly?
Incidentally, playing a 4:3 QT file leaves a 1/2" on each side (at full screen) of black and the same size black bars above and below as with the 1.85 program
Oh, yeah, and the aspect ratio while in monitor mode is not controllable on the monitor. It assumes that the computer will control that. When the monitor is in DVD mode I can set the aspect ratio appropriate to the material and all is well...not so for DVI or VGA inputs.
Thanks.
Jim
It has both DVI and VGA inputs. I bought a DVI cable and connected our Mac Mini CoreDuo directly to it.
So far so good...
When we turn it on and "Detect Display" the Mac sets it up as a "GenericRGB". However, the resolutions available are all 4:3 (if you divide them out and do the math). The screen is filled with the Mac desktop top to bottom and side to side. It's OK for computing.
However, if we open Quicktime (Pro) and play a 1.85 aspect movie at "Full Screen" there is 2 or 3" of black bar above and below the picture (and the actors are shorter and fatter than they ought to be).
Bottom line: even though the display is 16:9 (native), the Mac "thinks" it is 4:3 and only gives me resolution optons of that aspect ratio.
Now the question....
Is there any way to overide the Mac setup and get to all the resolutions available so that we can choose one that plays the Quicktime properly?
Incidentally, playing a 4:3 QT file leaves a 1/2" on each side (at full screen) of black and the same size black bars above and below as with the 1.85 program
Oh, yeah, and the aspect ratio while in monitor mode is not controllable on the monitor. It assumes that the computer will control that. When the monitor is in DVD mode I can set the aspect ratio appropriate to the material and all is well...not so for DVI or VGA inputs.
Thanks.
Jim
ishan - Jun 21, 2006 - 3:21 pm
Try SwitchRes, available at versiontracker.com and macupdate.com. It should be able to do what you want.
Hope that helps and please let us know what happens.
Hope that helps and please let us know what happens.
jbbevan - Jun 22, 2006 - 10:00 am
Thanks for the response. I downloaded SwitchRes. As it was downloading it was a zip file, but after it downloaded it opened itself up to and "Installer" package AND the zip file was not left on the desktop. The reason I mention this is because it may have something to do with what followed.
The monitor in question is at a vacation home in Utah with my wife. I am in Texas. She has limited Internet accessability at that home. So I downloaded SwitchRes, rezipped it (the Installer package into a zip file) and then forwarded that zip to her via email. I had the original copy on my Mac Mini G4 and she had the emailed version on her Mac Min CoreDuo.
We opened them together while I talked her through it on the telephone. Mine installed with 4 or five colored icons across the top. Hers installed (seemingly normally) but did not have the icons that mine had...so we were on a different page than each other though we had tried to be on the same page working in parallel.
We both had an "Active" list and a "Common" list. The resolution we needed was not showing on her active list. We did find 1360 x 768 on the Common list however. She clicked it and activated it (placing a check in the activation column), she clicked "Apply". We then backed out of SwitchRes and rebooted the computer. Nothing changed. The 1360 x 768 was not in the active list and the check mark was no longer showing in the Common list. We tried a few iterations of this to no avail.
When we first opened SwitchRes it looked like it was exactly the right tool for the problem I had described to you. But, alas, we were unable to get it to function.
I did try "one more thing" (as Mr. Jobs would say...), however. As I mentioned I had wired the computer to the monitor using a DVI cable. I chose this becaue that is the "native" output of the Mac. On a hunch, we unplugged the DVI and replaced it with a VGA (sub-miniature "D", 15 pin) cable. When we did this the resolutions list (in standard Display Preferences) changed. One of the resolutions listed was 1240 x 768 (which was not 16:9 but it was wider than all of the 4:3 resolutions we had see up to that point). We chose that configuration and we are now able to view properly proportioned aspect ratios on this monitor, i.e a 1.85 aspect ratio fills the screen.
Quicktime is acting a little strange. When we select View/Full Screen it goes into some herky/jerky oscillation business. However, when we stretch the Quicktime frame to the max and click View/Present Movie/Current Size things work OK.
Things are working acceptably now. SwitchRes was not a success for us. I don't understand why QT is acting up. I don't understand why my wife and I were seeing different windows on SwitchRes -- was it because her file was damaged or because she was on an Intel and I was on a G4? There are unresolved questions BUT the monitor seems to be functioning properly now, so I guess we'll leave "well enough" alone.
I don't understand why Mac produces wide screen displays which are presumably 16:9 (standard HDTV) aspect ratios BUT there is not a single screen configuration that is 16:9 (which divides out to 1.77). There are 1.5 and 1.6 ratios, but none that I've found are 1.8. Using 1.5 (as we're currently doing) means that we're introducing a 20% distortion into the picture -- that is, unless QT somehow adjusts for this and presents 1.85 even though the "monitor resolution" is set to 1.5. Questions, questions....
Of course the BIG question is why the FCC adopted 1.77 when NOTHING in the world is 1.77.
Thanks again,
Jim
PS: We can close this one.
The monitor in question is at a vacation home in Utah with my wife. I am in Texas. She has limited Internet accessability at that home. So I downloaded SwitchRes, rezipped it (the Installer package into a zip file) and then forwarded that zip to her via email. I had the original copy on my Mac Mini G4 and she had the emailed version on her Mac Min CoreDuo.
We opened them together while I talked her through it on the telephone. Mine installed with 4 or five colored icons across the top. Hers installed (seemingly normally) but did not have the icons that mine had...so we were on a different page than each other though we had tried to be on the same page working in parallel.
We both had an "Active" list and a "Common" list. The resolution we needed was not showing on her active list. We did find 1360 x 768 on the Common list however. She clicked it and activated it (placing a check in the activation column), she clicked "Apply". We then backed out of SwitchRes and rebooted the computer. Nothing changed. The 1360 x 768 was not in the active list and the check mark was no longer showing in the Common list. We tried a few iterations of this to no avail.
When we first opened SwitchRes it looked like it was exactly the right tool for the problem I had described to you. But, alas, we were unable to get it to function.
I did try "one more thing" (as Mr. Jobs would say...), however. As I mentioned I had wired the computer to the monitor using a DVI cable. I chose this becaue that is the "native" output of the Mac. On a hunch, we unplugged the DVI and replaced it with a VGA (sub-miniature "D", 15 pin) cable. When we did this the resolutions list (in standard Display Preferences) changed. One of the resolutions listed was 1240 x 768 (which was not 16:9 but it was wider than all of the 4:3 resolutions we had see up to that point). We chose that configuration and we are now able to view properly proportioned aspect ratios on this monitor, i.e a 1.85 aspect ratio fills the screen.
Quicktime is acting a little strange. When we select View/Full Screen it goes into some herky/jerky oscillation business. However, when we stretch the Quicktime frame to the max and click View/Present Movie/Current Size things work OK.
Things are working acceptably now. SwitchRes was not a success for us. I don't understand why QT is acting up. I don't understand why my wife and I were seeing different windows on SwitchRes -- was it because her file was damaged or because she was on an Intel and I was on a G4? There are unresolved questions BUT the monitor seems to be functioning properly now, so I guess we'll leave "well enough" alone.
I don't understand why Mac produces wide screen displays which are presumably 16:9 (standard HDTV) aspect ratios BUT there is not a single screen configuration that is 16:9 (which divides out to 1.77). There are 1.5 and 1.6 ratios, but none that I've found are 1.8. Using 1.5 (as we're currently doing) means that we're introducing a 20% distortion into the picture -- that is, unless QT somehow adjusts for this and presents 1.85 even though the "monitor resolution" is set to 1.5. Questions, questions....
Of course the BIG question is why the FCC adopted 1.77 when NOTHING in the world is 1.77.
Thanks again,
Jim
PS: We can close this one.
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