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I Buy a Philips TV HD eady model n. 32pfl3403, and im trying to put my Intel Mac Duo 1.85 by VGA cable, but it dont works, i try some diferent resolutions, ut nothing, the image come for half second and stop… teh signa: Not supported resolution! ??? Help me :)

Setup:
Mac Mini connecting via DVI-HDMI cable to Pioneer 42″ Plasma.

Same problems as most people note here.

Points of note:
- Only a select few of the new Plasma HD tv’s will work properly without fine tuning with your Mac Mini. Most will only give you resolution options of 1024 x 576 or 1280 x 720.

- DVI – SVGA cable: Used it and loved it. For ease of use and no setup hassle, this is an excellent solution. Will start up straight away giving you 1360 x 768 res. But if you start comparing colours and clarity for SVGA connection vs. HDMI, you might want to go HDMI… it’s not a HUGE difference, but try watching the “Nature” screen saver on your mac with both modes and you will know what I mean.

- If you choose HDMI cable, you can go for an easy fix and just enable “overscan” in your display settings – this will stretch your display out to full-size on the screen, but will cut slightly the top and bottom of your display. Annoying, but some people can live with it. Means you don’t have to go through custom resolution setup.

- HDMI and custom resolution settings.
First: Make sure you disable overscan.
I tried both DisplayConfigX and SwitchResX. I’m not going to generalise and say which is better – just that I found SwitchResX easier to use personally. I don’t think either of them are that great, but if you want one that can hold your hand a little more, choose SwitchResX.

Rule number one of custom resolutions – if you just type in your required screen resolution and restart – 99% of the time you will get just a black screen after bootup. We’ll deal with that in a minute.

I found that the easiest thing to do on SwitchResX is just start it up with your normal resolution set at the time (like 1280 x 720), click on the “Custom” tab and click “+” (add).
Change the settings from “Scaled” to “Custom”.
When you do this the current detailed resolution settings for your screen will be shown. If you are REALLY confident and smart and maybe someone has given you the exact correct settings for your exact TV you could enter them here. But if you just type what you want, you’ll probably get the black screen issue….. so let’s not do that.
Now see on the right hand side of the window you have all the arrows to stretch, shrink and move your display. Don’t type in any resolutions – just click on the arrows.
Start stretching your screen to the size you want. The good thing about doing it this way is that it won’t let you go outside of the viewable settings!!!! So you won’t have reboot and black screen issues.
Try adjustments of around 20-30 pixels at a time – don’t be greedy and just aim straight for your required resolution. Once you have made your change, click “OK, then “Apply”.
It will say that it will be available on reboot. Forget that!
Open display settings in preferences and rotate your screen 180 degrees. Then click revert. It has automatically adjusted to your custom setup.
Now you have a 10 minute process of stretching and checking to get your desired resolution.

But there is a downside – some screens just won’t let you get to your preferred resolution through HDMI. I know it’s fully supported on the SVGA setting and you can watch 1080p blu-ray etc. but Mac just won’t let you get there sometimes.
That’s why anytime you’ve tried to enter all sorts of settings you get a black screen – it just won’t support it.
So If you want to stretch your screen out wider more or move it down more but the SwitchResX arrow is greyed out – it’s greyed out for a reason. You can try to then type in changing of values, but be warned! Black screen will be waiting for you.
Through the stretching method I’m currently running 1380 x 744 which actually looks really good – all the screen is full.

DEALING WITH A BLACK SCREEN AFTER A CUSTOM RESOLUTION:
Even if you don’t have a black screen NOW, read this anyway because you’ll want to know how to fix it if it happens (and you can’t see your screen to google the problem later!!!).
- Turn off your mac (full shut down – hold down switch.)
- Wait 3 seconds.
- Start up mac.
- As soon as you hear the bootup sound on the mac, hold down (left) shift key. Keep holding it down until you see the circle of dots on the screen going around in standard bootup mode. Then let go of shift key.
This will get you into safe mode. You can’t do any screen resolutions settings in this mode so don’t get frustrated when it won’t let you. It’s in this mode that you are trying to get back to default settings, not fix/tweak your last setting.
If using SwitchResX, open SwitchResX and click “Factory Settings” in the top right hand corner of the window and confirm.
If you really WANT to, you can open finder and type “com.apple.windowserver” in the spotlight. You should see two files appear – delete them both. This is where the mac looks at startup for custom resolution settings – by deleting them the mac will have no choice but to start with standard display settings.
- Now reboot.

You will startup with standard resolution settings, but in normal mode so you can continue your resolution customisation.

Other tips that might help people:

- If using DVI – SVGA cable – check to see on the DVI plug if there are four pins surrounding the big flat pin on the right. If not, your mac to plasma/lcd ain’t going to work.

- Did you know that the Mac Mini supports digital audio output? The “headphones” plug on the black of the Mac Mini is BOTH a standard 3.5mm headphone jack AND fiber output. Get a standard fiber cable you would use with DVD player etc. and buy a little plug that will allow you to plug into the headphone jack. Plug this into your amp that can recieve digital audio and voila! 5.1 surround from your Mac!

Then i connect through my macbook to the mac mini (in normal mode – safe mode doesn’t support network). So now I had the opportunity to change the resolution. I have a Philips 42pfl9632d, actually it should be able to run 1920×1080 – but in ‘normal’ mode, I am only able to run 1280×720.

So I have heard that PowerPc’s will only run 720p, and Intel versionen should be able to run 1080p

Hope this helps you!