Thunderbolt to TV?

[Daniel97]

My Mini is connected to my 51" Plasma via HDMI set to 720p as the resolution is too small.

If/can i connect via thunderbolt with an hdmi adapter or similar to increase the resolution? If yes will this allow me to set the resolution back to 1080p and be able to read the screen?

 

[miles01110]

My Mini is connected to my 51" Plasma via HDMI set to 720p as the resolution is too small.

If/can i connect via thunderbolt with an hdmi adapter or similar to increase the resolution? If yes will this allow me to set the resolution back to 1080p and be able to read the screen?

Your Mac Mini should already support 1080p. Sounds like your TV is the limiting factor, not the Mini or what cable you're using.

 

[Daniel97]

i can set my mac to 1080p and it works but all the icons and text is far too small to read ...

 

[miles01110]

i can set my mac to 1080p and it works but all the icons and text is far too small to read ...

Then what are you even asking? Yes, 1920x1080 on a smallish monitor will probably be hard to read. If outputting to your TV still on 1080p is also too small, that's not the TV, the Mini, nor the connector's fault. Changing the connector is also not going to make the text easier to read, as your problem seems to be the size of things in the 1080p resolution.

 

[Daniel97]

I think you have misunderstood.

My Mac Mini is connected to a 51" Plasma.

When set to 1080p (on the mini) the icons appear small and text is hard to read.

When set to 720P everything is just right but picture quality is reduced.

Now if i use thunderbolt to connect to my TV - which has a much higher resolution will it make the icons even smaller still or will it allow me to have a crystal clear display whilst making the icons and text a decent enough size?

 

[bschwarz86]

I am sorry to burst your bubble man but 1080p is 1080p. Doesn't matter how you connect it, it is going to look exactly the same. TB is not going to help you out one bit. I don't even recall there being a TB to HDMI connector because it would be futile. The current cables in production today support 1080p signal to its maximum capabilities anyways. A simple search on google would render many results for Mac mini home theater setups that address this very issue and the resulting fix for this is almost always to keep it set to 720p. However, I cannot recall where I saw it but maybe you can search for it. Someone somewhere wrote a script that would automatically switch between 720p and 1080p depending on what app was open. So for example when you are in OSX it would display in 720p for easy reading and when you open PLEX or VLC it would automatically switch your output signal to 1080p. Very nice idea and I know it exists. Also maybe try changing the size of your icons to max and your text to a higher size. But the script is what you want to look for IMO. Hope this helps, if I find the script I will post back later.

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Ok man, Google never fails me.

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/08/21/ultimate-mac-mini-htpc-guide-software/

In that guide it is easily explained, simply download SwitchResX and all your problems should be gone.

It costs like 20 bucks but who cares for what it does.

Hope this helps.

 

[martinm0]

I think you have misunderstood.

My Mac Mini is connected to a 51" Plasma.

When set to 1080p (on the mini) the icons appear small and text is hard to read.

When set to 720P everything is just right but picture quality is reduced.

Now if i use thunderbolt to connect to my TV - which has a much higher resolution will it make the icons even smaller still or will it allow me to have a crystal clear display whilst making the icons and text a decent enough size?

Again, just to reiterate what others have said: The issue here is that 1080p resolution is too fine for you to view the file names and icons on the mini. 720p offers the right size on the screen for the file names and icons, but your media (presumably 1080p video) is down converted in quality.

What you need to do is set the resolution to 1080p, and in Finder, click View->Show View options (or just command+J), and set the text size to something larger and check off the larger icon option as well. From there you can also just change the Finder view to to Icon view (first option with 4 squares as the icon) and use the slider to increase the icon size from the lower right corner of any Finder window.

Give those settings a whirl and see if you can make the 1080p rez work.