Anyone used the Dr. Bott MDP -> HDMI + optical audio with a 2009 mac pro ?

[gjarold]

2009 octo mac pro, with 2 gt120s inside.

I bought one of these:

http://www.drbott.net/product/9601-MDOP/

and connected the macs MDP and optical audio to the device, and ran HDMI to my LCD display.

No picture.

Any idea what I could be doing wrong here ? I clicked "detect displays" in the prefs tab for displays, and I am currently running 3 other displays successfully...

Has anyone used one of these adaptors with a 2009 mac pro before ?

 

[gjarold]

Nobody ? I would think MDP -> HDMI is pretty straightforward ... surprised I am not seeing a picture on the screen...

 

[ActionableMango]

The link you provided does not list Mac Pros in the compatibility list:

Compatibility

Mac mini Early 2009
MacBook 13 Aluminum Unibody OCT 2008
MacBook Air JUN 2009
MacBook Air OCT 2008
MacBook Pro 15 Unibody Late 2008
MacBook Pro 17 Unibody Early 2009
MacBook Pro 17 Unibody Mid 2009
Thunderbolt
iMac Intel 17"
iMac Intel 20"
iMac Intel 24"

 

[gjarold]

The link you provided does not list Mac Pros in the compatibility list:

Compatibility

Mac mini Early 2009
MacBook 13 Aluminum Unibody OCT 2008
MacBook Air JUN 2009
MacBook Air OCT 2008
MacBook Pro 15 Unibody Late 2008
MacBook Pro 17 Unibody Early 2009
MacBook Pro 17 Unibody Mid 2009
Thunderbolt
iMac Intel 17"
iMac Intel 20"
iMac Intel 24"

Correct - but before that list, it states:

"Compatible with all computers equipped with mini DisplayPort"

which is reasonable, since MDP is MDP is MDP ... I'm not trying to do anything interesting like pipe audio over the MDP or anything ...

If I can get video out of the MDP, I should be able to pipe it through to HDMI - otherwise it is feeding something weird and I wouldn't be able to get anything out of it ...

 

[ActionableMango]

Correct - but before that list, it states:

"Compatible with all computers equipped with mini DisplayPort"

which is reasonable, since MDP is MDP is MDP ... I'm not trying to do anything interesting like pipe audio over the MDP or anything ...

If I can get video out of the MDP, I should be able to pipe it through to HDMI - otherwise it is feeding something weird and I wouldn't be able to get anything out of it ...

At best their specification are self-conflicting. At worst, the statement you mention is a copy-and-paste typo from some other product (if it truly works for all MDP equipped computers, why take the time to make an explicit list of Macs that work?). But this is all conjecture... obviously you can straighten this right up by calling Dr. Bott and getting the skinny straight from them.

MDP is not MDP is not MDP. 2009 MP MDP will not output audio over MDP. 2010 MP will. There are differences between active MDP adapters and passive MDP adapters. Converting from one direction is cheap, but the other really expensive. On flashed cards, DVI almost always works and MDP is the troublesome port.

DVI to HDMI is very straightforward, as they are literally the same signal (for video only). The MDP video signal is not the same as DVI/HDMI, so MDP to HDMI is definitely NOT straightforward.

Out of curiosity, what are you trying to connect to, a monitor or a TV? Mac>HDMI>TV is a bag of hurt. I've seen many, many complaints about this.

 

[derbothaus]

Mac>HDMI>TV is a bag of hurt. I've seen many, many complaints about this.

Yes it is. But depends on the make and model. My Sharp works just fine. Every Sony I've seen fails miserably. It is a toss up on Samsung. It's not too expensive to see if you are one of the lucky ones. Unless you buy a Monster cable or something stupid. MDP>DVI to HDMI crossover cable>HDMI in.