My Mac + HD Custom Application
We like to hear how you are using our Kanex adapters and your application setup. Not all users have the same HD setup. Some may plug directly to HDTV and some going through AV receivers. Are you using it on Mac mini, Macbook or iMac? Have you having issues with incompatibility with your HDTV resolution? How did you resolve the issue? Remeber not all HDTV supports 1080p. You'll have to find out the native resolution of your display type and adjust accordingly to match.
I bought the Kanex HDMI adapter to use with my media center, which is based on a fall 2009 2.53 GHz Mac Mini, directly connected to a 2-year old Sony XBR4 40" HDTV, which has 3 HDMI input ports. I record TV broadcasts off an antenna (rural area, no cable) with EyeTV. A networked 2 TB backup hard drive is connected to an Airport Extreme base station (media files are big), and I'll eventually add an Oppo Bluray player and an additional hard drive to the Mini when needed. So the Kanex adapter is a key part of this installation. Unfortunately for this blog, I have nothing interesting to contribute, no settings to change, no tweaks, etc. I plugged the Kanex adapter in, it worked instantly out of the box, and I have not had to do anything to it since. The Mini recognized the 1080p screen connected; the TV already seems to have technology to determine picture input size and quality, and sizes the picture on-screen accordingly. The feed from the Mini exactly fills the 16:9 TV screen. All my other electronic equipment should work so well!
Just got mine today, and it works beautifully! As you alluded to in the original post, I'm yet another flavor of setup. I'm using the latest version the Mac Mini. For the Digital Receiver, I have an older Yamaha RX-V640. The TV is a 1080p 46" Samsung LCD model LN-T4665F. Since the receiver pre-dates HDMI compatible receivers (at least in my budget range), it just has the digital optical audio connections. In order to get both the 5.1 through the receiver and use HDMI directly in to the TV, I had to take advantage of the digital audio out port on the back of the TV. I'm running everything into the TV using HDMI, then I am running the audio portion back out from the TV to the receiver. Works great!
Out of the box, it chose 60 Hz and 1080p correctly. However, I did have to turn the Overscan option off. In 1080p, it exceeded the screen limit. I am now in an underscan situation (Just read the other blog post) with the display being surrounded by approximately an inch and half of black. So, after I finish this comment, it is off to check the owner's manual to see if I can adjust it.
That being said, I am *very* pleased with the results. It is going to allow me to utilize this as I had hoped as a true media center PC. Thanks, Kanex!
I just got the adapter and the only thing I had to do was tell my 2009 Macbook to mirror the displays.
It had already changed the audio output to digital.And my Toshiba 19inch had detected the 1080p signal.I'm outputting the adapter right to one of the tv's hdmi inputs.
Wow..nothing like HD movies from Itune on the big screen(for me).
Funny I had no idea my new Macbook had optical audio out...I thought at first you had sent me the wrong audio cable!
Works great!
OK so this is how I got my Samsung T260HD monitor to work at 1920x1200 using the Kanex Mini DisplayPort Adapter To HDMI 1080p Video w/ Digital Audio. It took me ages to get this far so I really hope this guide may also be useful for people using other monitors.
1) Under System Preferences -> Displays, the Kanex device is listed as 'MDP Adapter'. The highest resolution on offer is 1920 x 1080 (1080p). However, this does not produce a sharp picture with the Samsung T260HD monitor, whose native resolution is 1920x1200. Therefore, you have to define a new screen resolution of 1920x1200 (or whatever the native resolution of your monitor is), using SwitchResX. Version 4.0.2 is compatible with Snow Leopard.
2) Now you need to consult the monitor that came with your manual, to find the timing modes for the screen resolution you require. For the Samsung T260HD, they are as follows:
VESA 1920 x 1200
Horizontal Frequency 74.038kHz
Vertical Frequency 59.95 Hz
Pixel Clock 154.000 MHz
Sync polarity H/V : +/-
3) You can now use these to fill in the required values when creating a new screen resolution:
http://www.kharbanda.co.uk/switchresx3.tiff
How do you work out all the numbers?
Horizontal and Vertical Active pixels: this is the screen resolution. (This much I knew already!)
Vertical Total pixels must equal 1235. This is found by dividing 74038 / 5995 (horizontal frequency by vertical frequency) which equals 1235. So whatever values you choose for front porch, sync width, and back porch (the blanking pixels) when added to the vertical active pixels you must get 1235.
Now you do the same for the horizontal values. The horizontal total must be 1280 lines. This is found by dividing 154000 / 74.038 (pixel clock by horizontal frequency). Make sure you don't have 'Use simplified settings' ticked otherwise the values will keep jumping around when you are trying to change them.
Hopefully, the screen resolution will now activate! (You will need to save, and then shut down and restart)
http://www.kharbanda.co.uk/switchresx2.tiff
If it doesn't activate, try disabling HDMI 1.3a:
http://www.kharbanda.co.uk/switchresx1.tiff
Also use this window to store the frequency range and default resolution of the monitor.
I just got my Kanex MDP-HDMI adapter (with digital audio) yesterday for use on my Mac mini and so far, it works very nicely. I'm connected via HDMI to my Harman Kardon AV receiver, which in turn sends the video out (by HDMI) to my Pioneer Kuro. My only hangup so far is that my desktop looks very fuzzy, as if I am set for a resolution lower than what the native resolution is. I'm using the 720p setting in my Display preferences with overscan, but I'm looking to set a custom resolution to the native one of 1366x768. I wasn't having much luck last night, but will tackle it later tonight or tomorrow after reviewing a couple guides in more depth.
We use a Harmony universal remote to control everything, and it works very nicely with the Mac mini. The mini will automatically run Front Row when it gets any commands from the remote (just like Apple's own remote) and playing back audio or videos is very simple so long everything is in iTunes. I actually have everything on my desktop in the office with iTunes sharing on, so I just stream whatever I want to play or watch using Front Row on the mini. It's sinfully easy, and the mini is soooo much more powerful and useful than the Apple TV it replaced.