GABA Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 (edited) What you need depends on your Mac and your TV. You need to figure out on your Mac: do you have a DVI port or a mini-Display Port? DVI: MiniDP: Newer Macs have the Mini Displayport (the latest models actually have a "Thunderbolt" port, but it's backwards compatible with MiniDP). Older ones used DVI. And on your TV, do you have HDMI in available or VGA in or both: HDMI: VGA: HDMI is going to be a better quality picture, but if you don't have any HDMI inputs open, you might prefer to use the VGA port. I hook my Mac laptop to my TV using a DVI->HDMI cable, and a headphone jack extender to an RCA Y-splitter to my stereo system (or the TV) for the audio. If you have the miniDP connector, you might can use this MiniDP to HDMI converter if you want to use an HDMI cable to connect, or the "PC" port on your TV is probably VGA and for that you'd need this MiniDP to VGA adapter along with a VGA cable. Once you've got the video plugged in, your OS should just realize that it's there and try to make use of it. You should be able to move the window with the drum corps show over to the TV from your laptop's desktop (the TV space of your desktop will *probably* be to the right of your laptop's desktop, ie move the window off to the right and it will show up on the TV). Hit the full screen button and see how that looks. If there are black lines around the picture, or if the picture extends past the edges of the TV, then you have to do some adjustment. IIRC, on the Mac OS, in the Display properties you can manage the properties of the TV you're plugged into and there's an "overscan" option that will make things fit the screen a little better (either off or on, depending on what the problem is when you first plug it in). Not sure if there are more options than that. On Windows, you need to find your display adapter driver's properties. I have a Macbook Pro, but I run Windows, with Apple's supplied driver for the Nvidia video chip inside the laptop. So I pull up the display properties and one of the tabs is the "driver properties" or something to that effect, and there's a driver control panel that then gives me a way to adjust exactly where the edges of my display are, and I used that to set the width and height properly. After all of this, watching Fan Network (live webcasts or older stuff) on the big TV is an awesome experience. Way way better than just on the laptop screen. It's worth the effort. But be willing to put up with a lot of false starts and weird happenings and mistakes, and if you are anything like me you will end up with a bunch of cables at the end that you don't need, because you'll have bought about three or four of every option trying to figure out what works best with your TV and stereo. Good luck! Nice write up! Good Job! :thumbup: I just found this nice little adapter cable for the Apple Mac's Mini Display adapter -G Edited August 1, 2011 by GABA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony L. Posted July 28, 2011 Author Share Posted July 28, 2011 Excellent advice, I knew I could count on the drum corps community to assist! You guys are the real geniuses! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steeldrum Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 I connected my Windows 7 PC to my HD TV with an HDMI cable but the sound didn't come through to the TV. Any advice for this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emc2 Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 Nice write up! Good Job! :thumbup: -G Apple sell a dvi cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightbulb Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 I connected my Windows 7 PC to my HD TV with an HDMI cable but the sound didn't come through to the TV. Any advice for this? Steeldrum: Check your control panel settings in Win 7. Go Control Panel/Sound--Look at Playback options to see what is default and or activated when you have the HDMI cable plugged in. I found that sound went through the HDMI and actually cut out the 1/8 output on my computer. So to get the sound into my stereo system, I took the audio out from the tv and plugged it into my stereo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvu80 Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 (edited) What you need depends on your Mac and your TV. You need to figure out on your Mac: do you have a DVI port or a mini-Display Port? (respectful snip, just referencing your post) After all of this, watching Fan Network (live webcasts or older stuff) on the big TV is an awesome experience. Way way better than just on the laptop screen. It's worth the effort. But be willing to put up with a lot of false starts and weird happenings and mistakes, and if you are anything like me you will end up with a bunch of cables at the end that you don't need, because you'll have bought about three or four of every option trying to figure out what works best with your TV and stereo. Good luck! Terrific Mr. Sky! Your post ought to be pinned to the forums, just like the "No Youtube" thread, for all future generations to learn from. It's that good. I watched from my PC via HDMI to a 47" screen and it's terrific! Just remember the HDMI does both sound and video to the TV, so it's easy. But if you hook up head phones into the PC, you bypass the cheap TV speakers, so it's about as good as it gets IMO, you can hear everything. +++ FYI (talking over your shoulder) the fixed cam that doesn't go goal line to goal line doesn't bother me a bit. The FN rocks! Edited July 28, 2011 by wvu80 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony L. Posted July 29, 2011 Author Share Posted July 29, 2011 I just wanted to report back to everyone that I have now gotten my Mac to show videos on the TV (the Cadets in Hillsboro, OR -- WOW!!!!). Now I am having a problem with the audio portion. I have the cable that runs from the headphone jack to the sound system, but no sound is coming out. If anyone has any trouble shooting ideas, I would welcome any suggestions. Atlanta is less than 2 days away and I am hoping to get all systems in order before then! Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Photographer Jim Posted July 29, 2011 Share Posted July 29, 2011 (edited) I just wanted to report back to everyone that I have now gotten my Mac to show videos on the TV (the Cadets in Hillsboro, OR -- WOW!!!!). Now I am having a problem with the audio portion. I have the cable that runs from the headphone jack to the sound system, but no sound is coming out. If anyone has any trouble shooting ideas, I would welcome any suggestions. Atlanta is less than 2 days away and I am hoping to get all systems in order before then! Thanks. Did you check that you set your amp to the correct input setting? For example, my Mac out is plugged into the amps auxiliary input, so I have to remember to take my amp setting from TV and set it on Aux. Hope that helps. Edited for typo Edited July 29, 2011 by Photographer Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywhopper Posted July 29, 2011 Share Posted July 29, 2011 (edited) I just wanted to report back to everyone that I have now gotten my Mac to show videos on the TV (the Cadets in Hillsboro, OR -- WOW!!!!). Now I am having a problem with the audio portion. I have the cable that runs from the headphone jack to the sound system, but no sound is coming out. If anyone has any trouble shooting ideas, I would welcome any suggestions. Atlanta is less than 2 days away and I am hoping to get all systems in order before then! Double-check everything. When I have this kind of problem, I usually find I am overlooking something simple that my mind assumes isn't worth checking. First, unplug the cord from your Mac and be sure you are getting sound from your Mac speakers. Then check with some headphones in the jack to be sure that it's sending audio over the jack correctly. Then check some other audio source (iPod, portable CD player) plugged into the audio cable into your sound system. Make sure you've selected the right audio input on your sound system. Finally, try unplugging the Mac from the TV, and only sending the sound to the receiver while watching the video on the Mac. It's somewhat possible, depending on your setup, that something else is going on. Is the video from your Mac plugged straight into the TV, not going through your receiver first? Is the TV hooked to the receiver in any way? In some setups, the TV has an audio out that sends the audio from the HDMI cable to the sound system, and if you're going from a DVI out on your Mac to HDMI, you won't have audio on the HDMI, so it might send silence and that might override your alternate audio input? That's pretty convoluted. I guess the other possibility is that if you have a Thunderbolt or MiniDP Mac, they may be able to send the audio feed over the HDMI cable--I'm not sure if they do that or not. PCs with HDMI outs typically do. In that case, the Mac may not be sending any audio out over the headphone jack. Well, I figure I probably didn't cover your problem, but hopefully something I've said might help you figure out what's going on. Good luck! Edited July 29, 2011 by skywhopper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skypit9091 Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 I've tried to watch stuff on ESPN3 and it always freezes so it becomes frustrating. Before I purchase I'm curious if anybody has watched online using DSL. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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