OK so I posted before about my ordeal with MythTV and my Sony LCD. Well I moved on and am now trying to tweak the hell out of a Mac Mini and have been having little to no luck getting it up and running. Plus the resources have been sparse to say the least… but after hours (aka days) using DisplayConfigX and SwitchResX but had no luck. Then I ran across this useful thread here. Anyone with an A10 series Sony with a Mac Mini should pay close attention to the timings posted. Specifically of interest to us Mini users:

1232x696: HFP=112 HSW=128 HBP=192 kHz=48 VFP=45 VSW=5 VBP=50 Hz=60

Personally I’m sitting here struggling to get them to work. But I have a feeling that is due to the subtle nuances of my setup. I initially had the Mini going into my Pioneer VSX-82TSX Elite but couldn’t seem to get these timings working. I could write this off to the HDMI implementation in the Pioneer but unfortunately I’m still having without it… Since many report these settings as working with Minis I recommend people try them and please post a comment if they do/don’t work for you. And I’ll update this if I finally get these underscan issues solved.

UPDATE 2007-04-15

Finally found the correct video settings for a Mac Mini (specifically Mac Mini 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo). I can verify that these settings work on the KDF-E42A10 Sony Grand Wega LCD. It should work on any of the Sony A10 series and perhaps the A20 series but your mileage may vary. I found the settings over at 123MacMini.com and the link is here. I’m going to repost the information here for posterities sake.

Horizontal
• Active: 1224
• Front Porch: 120
• Sync: 80
• Back Porch: 224

Vertical
• Active: 690
• Front Porch: 10
• Sync: 5
• Back Porch: 34

For those running into black screens or just screen corruption or overscan/underscan issues I highly recommend giving these settings a try. A special thanks to SparkStack over at 123MacMini.com for spending the hours working through this problem and documenting his results!

For those interested in the settings for a Logitech Harmony 1000 w/ a Harmony RF Extender for the Mac Mini check out this thread over Mac Rumors. Not strictly necessary but helped me out.

UPDATE 2007-05-28

I’m still trying to solve one problem. I actually have this setup running through a Pioneer Elite VSX-82TXS HDMI switching receiver. Well if I don’t use the Mac Mini in some apparently arbitrary amount of time the Mini loses sync, perhaps b/c of a lack of EDID, and stops displaying. /var/log/windowserver.log shows:

May 19 18:37:44 [62] Server is starting up
May 19 18:37:46 [62] CGXMappedDisplayStart: Unit 0: no display alias property
May 19 18:37:46 [62] CGXPerformInitialDisplayConfiguration
May 19 18:37:46 [62] Display 0×4bc00000: MappedDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0×412f Model 0×0 S/N 0; online enabled (0,0)[1224 x 690], base addr 0×3008000
May 19 18:37:46 [62] Accel caps: 00000001
May 21 15:34:44 [62] No display devices are on-line. Switching to virtual display mode


That log data is from an entire boot session before I rebooted the system via ssh. So as you can see, it detects the display and properly configures it using the settings I specify above, then it drops it for some reason. Someone over at the Mac support forums suggested this device but, although it sounds like it might solve the problem, I was kinda hoping for a more elegant solution. After all my cable box doesn’t have an issue, but then again, as we all know, HDMI switching is far from perfect.