12-13-2009, 09:39 PM

I have a Samsung, LN40B530 40" display. I've had this display hooked up to a Windows XP PC for several months until I made the swith to a new Mac Pro. THe new LCD was working fine with the PC, the picture was great, the movies, etc. looked fine on the display. I've hooked that Samsung up to the new Mac Pro and it looks terrible. I am using a HDMI to DVI adapter and have tweaked every setting in the Mac preferences I can. I've even contacted Apple support to make sure I wasn't missing something there.

I filed a support request with Samsung, which by the way are the most incompetent group of support people I have ever run across. I read in the forums here that there was a known issue among some Samsung models that caused a problem with some displays and Mac OS X. I verified however that I do have the latest firmware installed on the LCD.

Has anyone had any experience here and do you know how I can get a clear picture on my LCD hooked up to the Mac?

The picture is very grainy, mainly text. It is very hard to look at the test too long as it begins to hurt your eyes. If anyone needs any more info to help with the issue, please let me know.

Thanks

12-13-2009, 10:49 PM

Hook up the monitor. Turn on the Mac. Put the Mac to sleep by closing the lid. Wait for the the sleep mode to take full effect. Wake the Mac up using the mouse or external keyboard (do not open the lid), and it should auto adjust the resolution for the external monitor.

12-14-2009, 12:13 AM

You're not going to get a clear picture related to text in comparison to Windows on your big screen TV. Another reason I'm using Win 7 for my HTPC and not a Mac.

For video / movies the Mac will be fine. You want text to look as sharp as what you're use to in Windows? Sorry, not happening.

The reason has to do with the two different philosophies of font rendering. Here is only one article about this. You can find more with some googling.

12-14-2009, 12:21 AM

Hook up the monitor. Turn on the Mac. Put the Mac to sleep by closing the lid. Wait for the the sleep mode to take full effect. Wake the Mac up using the mouse or external keyboard (do not open the lid), and it should auto adjust the resolution for the external monitor.

I have a Mac Pro, not a Macbook Pro.

You want text to look as sharp as what you're use to in Windows? Sorry, not happening

...yes, of course I do... That is pretty depressing. I have a $900 LCD that worked with the very computer I was getting sick of dealing with and now that I've switched, which I'm very happy about by the way, I found out I've wasted my money? I hope there is something that can be done. I am in the AEC industry and do consruction and draw construction documents. I do this largely from other peoples documents, so the large display allows me to see full size ARCH (36"+) documents much easier. So watching movies, etc. wasn't the primary purpose of the display to begin with, it mostly dealt with text.

Thanks for the info.

12-14-2009, 01:04 AM

Originally Posted by jfordtmc

I have a Mac Pro, not a Macbook Pro.

Oops!

Too bad. My 22" monitor works great with my Macbook Pro.

12-14-2009, 01:16 AM

One option you can try is to turn off text smoothing for larger font sizes. I did this when I was connecting my Mac to the TV.

System Preferences - Appearance - at the very bottom - I turned off text smoothing for font sizes up to 12 and smaller. Helped some. Play around with that and also with checking and unchecking the LCD font smoothing box. Even had one member notice it when I'd put up screen shots from my MBP screen.

Didn't look up that Samsung model, but at 40" and if it's 1080p you may be able to get it to the point where you can get use to it. I am/was using 55"-65" screen sizes and it was just a no go for me at that size and only a 1080 resolution. OS X's font rendering for me, really requires a resolution to match the screen size or it's just too blurry.

12-14-2009, 01:18 AM

Too bad. My 22" monitor works great with my Macbook Pro.

No problem. My (2) 22"'s work fine, it's just the 40" that's lagging.

12-14-2009, 01:27 AM

Remembering in bits and pieces - the other thing is to use the TV's sharpness adjustment.

12-15-2009, 01:36 AM

I tried messing around a bit with the settings that were suggested, but they didn't work for me. When I tried changing the font smoothing setting to a larger point, it started messing with the fonts everywhere else, so I changed it back.

Another thing I should mention, along with the text being grainy/fuzzy, against backgrounds that are not white, the text has a glowing background, i.e., in the finder, along the left hand side where your drives are listed, that column is gray, and all of the text there has a glowing white background. This adds to the 'eye hurt', which made me think there was more to the problem than the screen size alone?

12-15-2009, 08:12 PM

So I want to revisit this and make myself a little more clear. I read the article regarding the difference in font rendering between Apple and PC, it makes sense. I am fine with the way all fonts have looked to me on both my 22" monitors. Now that this issue has been mentioned, I guess I can see the difference a little bit, but nothing that really bothers me. The 40" monitor in question has an entirely different issue however. Everything, not just fonts, are blurry or fuzzy on the 40" LCD. There are white glowing backgrounds behind all text on a darker than white background. Video, pictures, web pages, the finder window, .pdf files, ...everything has a bad picture, which leads me to believe that large Samsung LCD displays just simply don't play nice with OS X. Beyond any other advice, should I be going back to the place of purchase and see if I can't get myself into a different LCD that has been proven to work well with the Mac OS? I've tried everything I can think of, including making sure I have the latest firmware for the LCD.

Thanks again.

12-15-2009, 08:18 PM

??? - how about a screen shot or two - ???

Of course, we may not be able to see it in a screen shot if the issue is with the monitor.

maybe take a picture also and post it.

12-15-2009, 11:22 PM

I've attached a screen shot, but it looks fine there because I think it is an issue with the monitor. I've also attached some photos, but they don't really do the problem justice. It looks worse in real life. If you zoom in, you can see the white wash behind the text and the grainy look to everything.

Thanks,

12-16-2009, 07:00 AM

Yep, you're right. Screen shot looks just fine while the image on the screen itself bites the bullet.

Have not seen this issue before. I would think this is related to either the adapter/cable or the monitor. The last thing I know to recommend (and you may have done this already) is shut everything down. Unplug all cables, whether they look and feel good or not, replug everything in, and then turn everything back on.

I don't believe it to be an issue with the video card, but I would also try your system with another monitor to rule out the port on the card. This would have to be tested with different cables also if negative with the current cables.

01-13-2010, 07:24 PM

I just bought this same TV and it looks horrible on the MAC. Grainy. Glowing Text. I just had my Macbook Pro hooked up to a Vizio 37 inch and it was a perfect monitor, but this samsung is crap. Tried the software upgrade but no luck. I feel the pain.

01-13-2010, 08:32 PM

I had a Samsung SyncMaster 171V monitor that looked the same, even with DVI. Frankly, it's just Samsung and Macs that don't work seem to work well together.