Connecting to HDTV

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I just bought an Insignia brand LCD HDTV, and I bought a mini-DVI-to-HDMI adapter and plugged my Mac into the TV via said adapter and an HDMI cable. When I put the TV on the input into which I plugged the HDMI cable, my desktop background image appears on the TV, but that's it. After playing around for a few minutes I discovered that if I move my windows (i.e. Firefox or iTunes) or my desktop icons all the way off of the right side of my Mac's screen, they become visible on the TV, even though my background image is centered on both the computer and the TV. And when I put a movie on iTunes on full-screen mode, my TV goes black. Any ideas why? Also, the audio doesn't seem to be going through to the TV at all, as I expected it to. I'd like to be able to watch movies on my TV through my computer and (more importantly) listen to music from my computer through the surround sound home theater I hooked up to my TV. Thanks!
 

bobtomay

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1. DVI does not carry audio - attaching a HDMI cable to a DVI does not somehow add the audio to it. Sounds like you have an A/V receiver there? Get a "mini-toslink to toslink" cable to go from your Mac to the receiver for sound. (Stick that part in quotes into an Amazon search, you'll find what you need.)

2. Haven't tested all the video players, but many of them, when playing in full screen, the 2nd screen will auto black out. Just the way of it. Haven't bothered with figuring out why either.

Either move iTunes to the TV screen before playing your movie, or turn on mirroring in System Preferences - Displays.
 
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haha thanks, that shows how much I know... I had heard of turning mirroring on but for some reason I thought mirroring was adjusted on the TV, not the computer. My A/V receiver only has one toslink input, which is taken up at the moment by my TV. Should I buy a splitter and mute whichever one I'm not using, or do I have to just plug them in one at a time?
 

bobtomay

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What's the model number of your TV?
 

bobtomay

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Looks like the receiver also has a coax input next to the optical - this gives you 2 options:

a) get a stereo mini-plug cable - this would plug into the front of the receiver - will only have stereo from your Mac which is just fine for music

b) get an optical to coax converter, a coax cable and an optical cable - with this one, you'll still get 5.1 output on those things that have 5.1 that you watch from the computer - for example if you go to purchasing HD movies online - that can be pretty cool when friends or family are over for movie night.

Those links will give you an idea of what to look for - I've bought multiple cables off Amazon from Cables To Go - you can also check at monoprice.com and may be able to get what you need even cheaper there. Your local electronics stores should have all of this stuff also.

Actually, third option is to switch to VGA instead of HDMI to the TV - but I'd use one of the two above since you'd still need to get an audio cable to go along with it.

edited - to correct item b)
 
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thanks bob, you've been infinitely more helpful than the folks at BestBuy, who sent me out with a PC monitor cable (which I questioned, but I wasn't sure what kind of outputs were on my computer and they said it would work fine) and a 9mm audio cable.
 
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Actually I just looked at the input on front of my receiver (I didn't even know it was there), and it looked like the 9mm cable would work... and it did! Thanks again bob
 

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