05-25-2010, 09:38 AM

Hello, I'm new to Mac Forums, but I'm hoping someone could help me.

I recently purchased a new 13" Macbook Pro. I've been using a 15" Macbook Pro since 2007, but wanted something a little smaller for portability.

Anyway... onto the question... the new Macbook Pros have a mini-display port if I am correct. I've been trying to figure out how to connect my new Macbook Pro with the mini display port to an older SD TV with s-video, composite, and component connections.

Any help accomplishing this would be greatly appreciated.

05-25-2010, 12:03 PM

Your native laptop resolution would be 1280 by 800, and this brings certain limitations to what you would want to use.
Both s-video and composite connections only support 720 x 576i and 720 x 480i resolutions, and therefore if you connect using these the result will be not optimal.

Component video on the other hand is capable of transfering video in 1920×1080 @ 60 1280×720 @ 60 720×480 @ 60 variations, which is what you would want to use.

Although fromt the first glance it seems viable to use a mini-DVI to DVI adapter first and then use something like this Amazon.com: DVI-I To Component Video Adapter: Electronics , in reality it is not possible since that adapter requires DVI-I incoming signal and you can only get DVI-D from MacBook without an expensive digital to analog converter.

That leaves you with the option to use Apple Mini-DVI to Video Adapter - Apple Store (U.S.) (miniDVI to s-video), but note that the outcome may be somewhat decent to watch DVD's but useless for anything more detailed.

I hope someone with much more experience on the matter corrects me on this, otherwise you are stuck with s-video.