Having trouble getting Sony Bravia to recognize Macbook Pro

[cptexas]

All,
I too have a Sony Bravia and a Macbook Pro with a mini display port.

I bought the Apple attachment to connect my mini display port to a HD15 cable with ferrite core. I plugged the HD15 cable into the rear of my TV where it says RGB. Everything fits well, but I am still seeing only two external inputs for the TV: my DVD player and my cable box. The TV doesn't seem to know that I have a computer attached to it. The user manual for the TV says I should change the output signal from the PC to a certain resolution. Tried that. I really don't know what I am doing. I want to display a Powerpoint presentation and a set of photos from Iphoto on the TV this Sunday (January 29, 2012). Will I be able to do that when I get this working? I thought I could use the TV like an external computer monitor. I need some step by step instructions including what order to turn the TV and the computer on, and when to connect the cable to the mini display port. I have read that I should use PF7 on my Macbook, but I don't think that may be from a different version of Macbook than mine. Mine doesn't seem to have the "mirror display" icon on any of the function keys... Can anyone help?

 

[takeshi74]

Always include the specific TV model with these threads. I suspect resolution is your problem as stated. You need to find one that your TV supports.

 

[GGJstudios]

How to: Connect a MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro to a TV

 

[cptexas]

solved my issue

Thanks for the support. I tried HDMI hookup but my macbook pro didn't recognize the TV. With the VGA hookup, it did recognize the TV (it went blue screen temporarily on the Macbook Pro). On the Macbook Pro, I went to system preferences/display/detect displays and it downloaded a Sony TV display for me. I went to system preferences/display/arrangement and picked Mirror Display. Later when I had everything working, I went back and played with the resolution of the screen.

My problem was with the Sony. I figured out (finally) how to set the TV to the VGA input (called PC Input on the Sony Bravia). Someone had set up the Sony Bravia for me when I bought it, and they renamed the inputs. So I had one for my DVD player and one for my cable box (component one and component two on the actual TV). Nothing else, because he chose "Skip" for the other inputs including the HDMI inputs, the Video inputs and the PC Input. So they no longer showed up when I scrolled through my external inputs using the remote. All I had to do was use the menu on the Sony Bravia to rename my External inputs. I changed "Skip" to "On", for the PC Input. It is working! This is a very basic hookup but it serves my purpose and whew! I needed it for Sunday. Thank you Apple. The guy at the Apple store was the one who convinced me the problem was with the Sony (by reassuring me that the blue screen was the computer doing what it should do). And I remembered the TV technician renaming things for me a few years earlier and decided to try that angle.