questions about "stretched" images on external monitor (and "display preferences")

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questions about "stretched" images on external monitor (and "display preferences")

Greetings:

I’ve connected my 2008 Macbook to a Panasonic tv using a Mini-dvi to VGA cable.
By doing this I’ve got the computer screen to appear on the tv but it’s “stretched.”
I’ve tried to change this by changing the screen resolution in “Preferences/Display” but it hasn’t worked.

Question One: Is the stretching caused by not having selected the right resolution setting in “Preferences/Display”? If so which setting should I choose? (The current setting is 1280x800; this may not be what the original setting was, but the computer screen looks ok.) Also: if the stretching is not caused by an incorrect resolution setting, how can I fix it?

Question Two: since hooking my computer up to the tv yesterday and fiddling with the display resolutions, my operating system (10.5.6) has “unexpectedly quit" twice. It has never done this before. Could this be caused by hooking up the tv and/or changing the resolution?

regards to all

flunn
 

bobtomay

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What is the native resolution of your Panasonic TV?

When you open up Displays there will be two preference boxes. One on the screen of your Macbook and another one on the TV screen.

The one on your MB should stay at the native resolution of your MB which is 1280 x 800.

The one on your TV should be changed to match the native resolution of your TV.
 
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Thank you, bobtomay, for your helpful reply. I haven't yet tried the solution you suggest, because while I was looking in the tv documentation to find the native resolution (it's 1366x768) I noticed a mention of a "format" button on the remote and I found that when I changed that to 4:3 the stretching disappeared and I could see the streaming movie I'd been trying to watch perfectly. There was still one problem though, although one that I could certainly live with: on both the tv and the computer, I could see only one section of what I would normally see on the computer screen. I'll try your method tomorrow to see if it solves this problem.
anyway, thanks again
flunn
 

bobtomay

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15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Yours is a 720p HDTV.

Also take a look in the TV manual for the section on connecting a computer. Panasonic is typically good about having a section there that will list the resolutions it will accept through it's VGA input.

In the Displays preferences of your Mac, most of the time you'll want to set the TV to the highest that it will accept.

You will also want to play around with checking and un-checking the box that turns mirrored mode on. This provides for a duplicate of your computer screen or a 2nd separate screen that you can drag individual apps onto.
 

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