Video Cable For Laptop Mac Exporting Both

The result will be the Mac exporting both video and audio signals to the TV.

Yes, the AirPlay feature can also export a screen to show up on a TV through an Apple TV box, but the HDMI method has several distinct advantages; its cheaper, resource usage is considerably less, there are no slowdowns, the video quality does not depend on network latency, and its just generally much more versatile, making the only real downside to the HDMI approach being the physical cable connectivity.

Generally, the adapters that cost a little bit more tend to be more reliable, so be sure to read the reviews and make sure that audio does indeed work for the adapter you are ordering.

Ive had the best experience with the Monoprice brand, but your mileage may vary.

Also note that for 2010 and older Macs, the Mini-DVI to HDMI adapters do not carry audio at all, thus you will need a separate audio output option that we wont cover here (external speakers, separate audio cable, etc).

Again, note that the latest MacBook Pro models have an HDMI port, so you wouldnt need an adapter on one of those MacBook Pro models, you can just directly connect an HDMI cable between the Mac and the TV.

The Mini-DisplayPort to HDMI adapter that connects to the Mac will look something like this.

If that doesnt happen, you are probably on the wrong video source of the TV, so try another HDMI source.

Some modern HDTVs have up to 6 HDMI ports, meaning youll have to flip through each of them to find the proper one carrying the Macs video and audio output signal.

Youll know it works because the desktop shows up on the TV instantly like this.

On the other hand, if youre looking to watch movies through apps, watch web video, or use another playback source from the Mac on the larger TV screen, then youll want to take a few additional steps to greatly improve the experience.

Plus youll probably want to get sound working properly, as youll notice by default audio wont play through the TV screen and stays playing through the Macs speakers instead.

Read on to optimize the TV for video playback, get sound working, and for some more tips for having the best experience.

Thats great if you intend on using the TV as a large external monitor, but if youre aiming to watch video or a movie, or play games, youre better off using Display Mirroring in many case.

Since the 1080p resolution is greater than that seen on many Mac displays, youll either need to scale down the resolution, deal with a pixelated image, or just set the external display as the primary display and go into full-screen mode on the TV screen when playing video as described in Option B.

For just about every HDMI based Mac-to-TV connection, these audio settings must be adjusted manually after the two have been attached to one another and video is already displaying on the TV screen.

In the screenshot example, the LCD HDTVs model is VO320E for a Visio 32 but the names are often much more convoluted than that.

For other formats, VLC is a classic app and should be included in just about every Mac users app toolbox, and MplayerX is becoming increasingly popular for being just as versatile while having the added bonus of supporting BluRay and MKV playback.

If you have a spare Mac, you can even turn it into a full-time media center, server, and torrents box, and the Mac Mini is particularly great for that purpose.

This is frequently true with many web-based streaming movies, or when playing video that is lower resolution in general.

Some playback apps like QuickTime and VLC have the ability to play video at 1.5x and 2x resolution to solve that problem, but for web players and other apps you can just use screen zoom instead.

Youre better off trying this out yourself to see if it works for the video you want to watch.

For those who enabled the gesture option, this is done by holding the Control key and then using a two-fingered upward gesture to zoom in (or two finger down to zoom out).

Mac Video Cable For Laptop