2010 Mac Mini with NVIDIA 320M. Blacks are crushed. How do I fix?

[acribb]

I am getting a new 2010 Mac Mini for Christmas to use as an HTPC.

At the moment I am testing with my 2010 Macbook Pro with a 330M hooked up to a Denon AVR-3806 receiver via HDMI. The Denon is hooked up to a plasma via HDMI.

I assume that the 320M in the Mini and the 330M are very similar, which is why I am posting here in the Mini forums, since I think I will get more visibility in here where people hook up their Macs to TV sets.

When I plug in the HDMI to the Macbook Pro using a mini displayPort to HDMI adapter, it automatically creates some generic DENON_AVR color profile or something like that. Things look ok, but everything is too dark for my liking. All shadow detail is lost.

It seems like I am getting better results when using the s-RGB color profile or even the Adobe RGB 1998 color profile, but i'm still not happy.

How do I get this video card, the 320M or the 330M, output just 'raw' or default, without having to calibrate the color profile? I tried calibrating using the Color menu on the Macbook Pro, but it just didn't work out. I would like it to just output the default or something so that I can just use the TV to control the final result. I have a few Popcorn Hour boxes that I currently use and I don't have to mess with any sort of color profile on those boxes. It just outputs a great picture. And I can leave the HDMI input on my TV with the same picture settings that I use for my DVR. Since I am using the AV receiver to do the HDMI switching, only one HDMI input on the TV is being used, so I have to leave the picture settings alone. The HDMI input is set on the Pioneer 6070 to accept RGB.

This is the only thing that is turning me off on the whole HTPC idea at this point.

Any suggestions?

What settings are others using with a Pioneer 6070 plasma?

Thanks for the help.

 

[acribb]

I actually resolved this issue by downloading a free, small app called 'Black Light'. The issue was that the MacBook Pro was outputting a 0-255 luminance when in fact it needed to output a 16-235 luminance so as not to crush the blacks. Since I am going through the Denon AV receiver first before going to the plasma, the MacBook Pro can't see that I am connected to a plasma TV, and thinks that I am connected to a computer monitor. Computer monitors are made to handle the 0-255 range, while consumer TVs are configured to handle the 16-235 range of luminance. Black Light allows you to manually set the luminance to 16-235. Everything looks excellent now, just as it should.

Apple should put an option in Displays to allow the user to manually change this.

I'm hoping that once I use the Mac Mini (instead of my MacBook Pro), that its native HDMI port output will automatically choose the 16-235 range so I don't have to use Black Light.

See here for more detail on this issue over on the AVS Forums-
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1292025